Dr. Christian Yaste recounts his history with single-use burs and the innovations that Komet USA brought to the single-use market.
Burs have always been essential to dentists. Diamond and carbide burs are constantly changing to improve efficiency in dental practices, and one of those changes was introducing single-use burs to the market.
Single-use burs haven’t always been around. In fact, they’re a relatively new instrument to the market. However, some dentists were using multi-use burs once and throwing them out before single use was around.
Christian Yaste, DDS, was one of those dentists.
Christian Yaste, DDS, cosmetic dentist in Charlotte, North Carolina
“In a dental practice, it can be challenging to keep track of how many times you’ve used a bur on different patients,” said Yaste. “Teeth have different consistencies and densities. One individual’s enamel is not the same as another’s. This creates a variation on how often you can use the same diamond and get the same results.”
For these reasons, Yaste used multi-use diamonds as if they were single-use – disposing them after each patient. That was getting costly, as multi-use diamonds are more expensive than single use. He believed that the efficiency of using his burs on one patient outweighed the costs.
When single-use diamonds hit the market, Yaste was excited. He could start saving money and continue to use burs on only one patient. However, cheaper burs meant potentially lower quality. Yaste noticed that his handpieces needed repairs more often after he had switched to single-use diamonds.
“When the single-use burs were spinning at thousands of RPMs in the handpiece, they could damage the internal components of the handpiece,” said Yaste.
Yaste continued to use single-use diamonds, believing that the benefits still outweighed the costs.
Then, in 2021, Komet USA entered the single-use market, introducing hundreds of different shapes and sizes of disposable
diamonds and carbides. Yaste was immediately on board to test them.
“I knew that the cutting quality would be adequate, and that it would be made in a high-quality facility in Germany,” said Yaste. “Because of this, I was excited to test out Komet’s, and I found that they cut better than other single-use diamonds that I had used.”
Yaste has found that his handpieces have needed less repairs since switching to Komet’s single-use diamonds.
Since then, Yaste has exclusively used Komet’s single-use diamonds to increase efficiency in his practice without worrying about costs.
“If you’re reusing a diamond after autoclaving, it’s not going to cut as well,” said Yaste. “Cutting fast and efficiently with a sharp diamond will give consistent results. Single-use diamonds will increase efficiency and profitability.”