Instruments designed for cutting of biological tissues (e.g. osteotomes) impact on the cutting procedure and may influence the post-operative trauma and patient recovery time. Standards governing the design and manufacture of surgical cutting instruments do not specify the techniques to be used to ensure instrument quality and optimized performance. We are unaware of any regulations for recall and checking of clinically used cutting instruments.

To model the cutting process it is necessary to have data on blade profile, tip-radius, surface roughness, the composition of the blade and substrate materials, and the mechanics of the process. These parameters may vary over the length of a blade. In this study, we compare the ability of different techniques to measure the required blade parameters. An osteotome (used for cutting bone) was taken as a case study.

To model the cutting process we need to develop a continuous geometric representation of the blade – i.e. accurate dimensions of the tip radius, as well as the flank angles and surface roughness. None of the measurement devices were capable of quantifying all the geometric parameters of a blade and this leads to discontinuities between the different measurements. All the measurement devices used were laboratory based, costly, and required special set-up procedures. Clearly, it would be beneficial to develop a measurement system that could be used in a clinical environment to determine if a given blade is ‘sharp’ or ‘blunt’. Such an instrument would also facilitate the development of models of the cutting process.