Surgical pearl: Modified Gillette Guard-1 blade for shaving surgery

Muhammed Mukhtar; Nadia Mukhtar

doi:10.25259/CSDM_1_2023

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Innovations

2023

:3;

13

doi:

10.25259/CSDM_1_2023

Surgical pearl: Modified Gillette Guard-1 blade for shaving surgery

Muhammed Mukhtar¹, Nadia Mukhtar¹

1Department of Dermatology, Mukhtar Skin Centre, Katihar, Bihar, India

*Corresponding author: Muhammed Mukhtar, Department of Dermatology, Mukhtar Skin Centre, KMCH Road, Katihar-854105, Katihar, Bihar, India. drmmukhtar20@gmail.com

Received: 2023-01-02, Accepted: 2023-01-10, Published: 2023-01-20

Licence

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, transform, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as the author is credited and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.

How to cite this article: Mukhtar M, Mukhtar N. Surgical pearl: Modified Gillette Guard-1 blade for shaving surgery. CosmoDerma 2023;3:13.

PROBLEM

Razor blades are one of the sharpest cutting tools used in shaving surgery.^[1] However, because of its poor finger grip and high flexibility, it is difficult to handle, and there is a danger of finger injury. Various modifications and adaptations have been proposed to enhance finger grips.^[2] However, these adaptations are costly and inconvenient to procure.

SOLUTION

The blade we used was a Gillette Guard-1^®, which has a better finger grip but less flexibility. The blade costs between 0.1 and 0.2 US dollars. The device has a single blade and a safety comb as a guard. The comb is cut and removed with the help of scissors. Then, the lateral cutting edge is wrapped with leucoplast as per the size of the lesions [Figure 1]. The blade is held with the thumb and index finger during shaving surgery [Video 1]. This device is simple to obtain and very safe for shaving small benign exophytic lesions such as seborrheic keratosis, dermatosis papulosa nigra, and warts, as well as taking a thin Thiersch’s graft with little or no risk of finger injury with or without its handle.

The modified Gillette Guard-1 blade having better finger grip is used for shaving surgery.

Video 1:

Video 1:The modified blade is ready for shaving surgery.

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Declaration of patient consent

Patient’s consent not required as there are no patients in this study.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.

Videos available online at

https://doi.org/10.25259/CSDM_1_2023

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.

References

Awadalla F, Hexsel C, Goldenberg LH. The sharpness of blades used in dermatologic surgery. Dermatol Surg. 2016;42:105-7.
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