Surgical steel is a variety of stainless steel that’s used in biomedical applications. Sometimes referred to as surgical stainless, surgical steel has no formal definition. Still, stainless steel varieties with the greatest levels of corrosion resistance are those designated for biomedical use. Some commonly accepted types of surgical steel include austenitic 316 stainless and martensitic 440 and 420 stainless. It might be helpful to think of surgical steel as the most corrosion-resistant form of stainless steel.