Tricks of the trade: sandblasting – ‘made safe’

Bracket failure may occur in practice due to the patient applying inappropriate force or due to poor bonding technique. This necessitates rebonding or the bonding of a new bracket. Sometimes repositioning of brackets to achieve the final alignment and root parallelism is also needed. It has been reported that sandblasting bracket bases greatly increases their retentive surfaces. Buyukyilmaz and Zachrisson found that sandblasting improves the retention and increases the bond strength when bonding to gold, porcelain and amalgam and also reported that sandblasting lower lingual retainer wires before bonding increases their bond strength.¹ Sandblasting can also be used for the removal of composite from loose brackets before rebonding and to increase the retentiveness of stainless steel bands.²

Microetcher is the most commonly used machine for sandblasting. However, the airborne debris can lead to respiratory problems for clinicians, as well as creating a mess in the surgery.