OSCILLATING SAW

Typical Number in Hospital: 6

Cost Bands: 4

References:

Hand saws looking very like carpenters' saws are sometimes used for working on large bones. However, there are power saws available which fall into electric and pneumatic types. The electric type may have a blade which vibrates and is used for splitting the sternum at the start of chest surgery. The advantage of having a vibrating rather than a rotating blade is that, if the vibrations are small, cutting will only occur in hard materials (e.g. bone), but will not occur in soft materials. Compressed air powered drills are more common, particularly for orthopaedic surgery. They often come as a kit consisting of an air-operated motor and foot-operated speed control, and a set of fittings for sawing, drilling, screwing and pinning. The are intended to work from nitrogen or air at 7 bar pressure which may be provided by pipeline or from cylinders.

Since the surgeon normally holds the motor during the sawing operation the whole device must be sterilizable. Pneumatic types are more amenable to total sterilization.

Electric oscillating saws are also used for cutting plaster casts.