Surgical Knives & Knife Handles

What This Collection Covers

• Otology and laryngeal — sickle knives (straight, curved, left, right, blunt, pointed), Rosen circular, Schuknecht roller and sickle, Plester round, Politzer and Sexton ear knives, Wullstein sickle, Koos micro knives, Jako micro laryngeal sickle, canal knives
• Rhinoplasty and septal — Joseph nasal and Joseph plastic knives in blunt, pointed, straight and curved, Cottle nasal, Freer septum (angled and E-model), Converse nasal plastic, Ballenger swivel, Masing cartilage
• Tonsil — Abraham, Bruenings, Canfield, Carpenter, Douglas and Fisher patterns
• Ophthalmic — Graefe cataract, Paufique keratoplasty, Berens keratome, Took, Elschnig and Gill corneal knives, Dean iris
• Orthopaedic — Smillie and Neff meniscotomes, Downing and Lowe-Breck cartilage knives, Hopkins and Reiner plaster knives
• Amputation — Liston (6 3/4" and 8"), Catlin, and the Charriere amputation saw
• Plastics — Watson skin graft knife, Cronin cleft palate knife
• Endoscopic cold knives — Storz straight, half-round and Ludvik wave-form, ACMI and AED half-moon, serrated and straight blades, Boston Scientific TUIP
• Handles — knife handles including a #3S with graduated ruler, Barron and mini scalpel handles, Landolt and Caspar bayonet handles
• Blade breakers — Castroviejo, Troutman-Chris and Swiss patterns
• Blades — sterile scalpel blades Fig. 10 in packs of 100, double-edge non-sterile packs
• Mouth gag and tongue depressor blades — McIvor, Davis, Davis-Boyle, Dingman, Doughty, Russel-Davis and Kilner-Doughty replacement blades

Fixed Blade or Replaceable Blade?

This is the first fork, and it is not about cost.

A fixed-blade knife — a sickle knife, a Joseph nasal knife, a meniscotome — has its blade ground into a specific geometry that no disposable blade reproduces. A sickle knife's inward-curving point exists to incise a tympanomeatal flap from inside a canal you cannot get a straight blade into. You buy the pattern because the shape is the instrument.

A handle with a replaceable blade gives a fresh edge on demand, which matters most for straight incisions through skin and fascia where the geometry is simple and edge sharpness is everything. A fixed-blade knife has to be resharpened; a handle just takes a new blade.

Most theatres carry both, and the choice per procedure is usually already made by the tray.

Why a Blade Breaker

Microsurgery needs an edge finer than any manufactured blade. A blade breaker holds a razor blade and snaps it along a controlled line, producing a fragment with an edge and an angle the surgeon chooses — then holds that fragment as the cutting instrument.

It is a niche piece of equipment that is entirely non-optional in corneal and micro-vascular work, which is why the Castroviejo, Troutman-Chris and Swiss patterns are stocked alongside the knives themselves.

How to Choose

Blade shape first. Sickle, round, half-moon, oval, triangular, swivel — each exists for one motion in one anatomy. Order by the pattern name your procedure calls for, not by size.

Blunt or pointed. A pointed knife starts an incision. A blunt or button-ended knife extends one along a plane without perforating what is beneath it — which is why so many of the Joseph nasal patterns come both ways.

Left, right or straight. The sickle and Smillie knives come handed. In a confined field, a right-cutting blade cannot do a left-cutting job. Surgeons working both sides usually keep the mirrored pair.

Length and shaft. Ear and laryngeal knives run 15–19cm with slender shafts to pass down a canal. Amputation knives are heavy and 12–16cm in the cutting length alone. Bayonet-shafted handles keep your hand out of the microscope's sightline.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a sickle knife used for?
Making the initial incision in the tympanomeatal flap and elevating it during middle-ear surgery. The inward-curving point lets you cut along an arc inside a narrow ear canal where a straight blade cannot be angled.

What is the difference between a scalpel handle and a knife handle?
Nothing, in practice — the terms are used interchangeably for a reusable handle that takes a disposable blade. Both are listed here, including a #3S with a graduated ruler along the handle for measuring as you work.

What is a meniscotome?
A knife for cutting meniscal cartilage in the knee. The Smillie and Neff patterns come handed, left and right, because the approach to each side of the joint differs.

What is a cold knife?
A non-electrified cutting blade used through an endoscope — in urology, for incising a stricture without the thermal spread of an electrode. The half-moon, serrated and straight profiles cut differently against tissue under irrigation.

Do you supply these individually or as sets?
Individually — every instrument here can be ordered on its own, and replacement blades are stocked in packs. Send us your list for a full set and our team will quote it line by line, with bulk pricing for distributors and hospital procurement.

Related categories: surgical scissors, dissectors, elevators, raspatories, osteotomes and ENT instruments.