Curette
Surgical hand tool for scraping or debriding tissue
A curette or curet is a surgical instrument for the scraping or debriding of biological tissue or debris in a biopsy, excision, or cleaning procedure. In form, the curette is a small hand tool, often similar in shape to a stylus; at the tip of the curette is a small scoop, hook, or gouge. The verb to curette means "to scrape with a curette", and curettage (/ˌkʊərɪˈtɑːʒ/ or /ˌkjʊərɪˈtɑːʒ/) is treatment that involves such scraping.
01Uses
Some examples of medical use of a curette include:
- the removal of impacted ear wax;
- dilation and curettage of the uterus, a gynecologic procedure;
- excision of many benign tumors and some malignant tumors;
- excision of the adenoids (adenoidectomy) by an otolaryngologist;
- to scrape tartar deposits from tooth enamel with a periodontal curette.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Curette”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Spoon-shaped curette.jpg by Mikael Häggström, CC0
- Curette in sterile packaging.jpg by Mikael Häggström. When using this image in external works, it may be cited as: Häggström, Mikael (2014). "Medical gallery of Mikael Häggström 2014". WikiJournal of Medicine 1 (2). DOI:10.15347/wjm/2014.008. ISSN 2002-4436. Public Domain. or By Mikael Häggström, used with permission., CC0
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