I am doing stereotaxic surgery to implant a guide cannula. I am running the microdialysis experiment for 8 weeks after the surgery and would like any advice or tips on which cement is most suitable please.
Dental acrylic works fine. The key is to ensure that the interface between the skin and cement heals appropriately. Sutures and also veterinary-grade Cyanoacrylate (super glue) work great.
Yes, dental cement and dental acrylic liquid together works. You may apply twice. Tissue glue helps to seal the suture.
Make sure you use screws and build up the head cap in order to get a stable, smooth implant. Dental acrylic works fine.
I've been doing a few hundred similar procedures for my dissertation so I have some advice.
I'd recommend Jet denture repair acrylic. Stainless steel screws are required for the caps to stay on. I use 4 screws placed in a square around the cannula and this is sufficient to keep the cap on for the 6.5 weeks of my experiments for virtually 100% of rats. In my experience, practice makes perfect on this and the first few dozen times you construct the caps, a significant portion of caps may fall off after around a month. It is very important to make sure the dental acrylic covers all the way around the screws. If the dental acrylic is freshly mixed (and thus very liquidy), it gets pushed around by the skin, so you want to wait until it's almost done hardening before you make the edges of the cap. With jet acrylic, the point at which it can be rolled into a ball using your hands (and not smear all over your gloves) is the exact point where it is perfect for fixing the edges to seal in the screws. I hope that makes sense. I struggled with optimal cap design for a while and it really hurts to lose subjects to bad caps!
Lastly, a friend of mine who is a dental surgeon recommends spraying the caps with saline periodically to speed the cap drying and also to reduce tissue damage due to the exothermic reaction occurring while the caps are drying.
Dental Cement mixed with acrylic liquid gives better strength to hold Guide cannula.
I tried for 2 weeks. Hope it works for 8 weeks too.
We use dental cement with acrylic liquid and have had variable success rates.
One tip we received in addition to making sure the mixture is not too liquidy, is to scrape the skull with a scalpel to create miniature grooves for the acrylic to bond to. The acrylic seems to not bond very well to the smooth skull in my experience, but it could also be a separate issue with our screws, screw placement or depth, cannula location and acrylic buildup in the back of the skull which creates leverage points and causes the head caps to loosen over time.
Our cannula placement is at the very base of the skull, so these issues may not be as problematic if you are placing a cannula more anterior or rostral.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Social Psychology
- Attitude