Surgical Mallets & Cartilage Instruments

Types of mallets and cartilage instruments

Surgical mallets

A surgical mallet is a hand-held instrument with a metal shaft and a solid head that strikes chisels, osteotomes and gouges. Weights run from the light Toffee mallet and Doyen bone mallet to the Bergmann orthopedic mallet for bone surgery; the Novotex mallet has a fiber plastic head and the ultra fine mallet a Tufnol handle.

Cartilage crushers and morselizers

Crushers and morselizers soften or break down cartilage grafts. Plate types — the Jost (Gubisch) crusher, the Cottle crusher and the Sheen crusher with its pressure screw — flatten grafts on a bed; forceps types — the Rubin and Gorney septal morselizers, the Gunter lower lateral morselizer and the Tschoepe crusher — work on the cartilage in the jaws.

Graft preparation

The cartilage cutting board is the PTFE surface for slicing harvested cartilage; the free diced cartilage trocar delivers diced cartilage along the nasal dorsum through a fine tube; Sheen cartilage forceps hold the graft.

Cartilage knives, scissors and abrader

Masing and Maltz cartilage knives, the Fomon lower lateral and McIndoe rhinoplasty scissors, and the Dingman cartilage abrader, which abrades the anterior auricular cartilage in otoplasty.

How to choose a surgical mallet or crusher

• Mallet weight. Light mallets suit fine nasal osteotomes and chisels; the heavy Bergmann is a bone-surgery mallet.
• Head material. Solid steel heads, or a fiber plastic head on the Novotex.
• Crusher type. A plate crusher flattens a whole graft on its bed; a forceps-type morselizer works the cartilage held in its jaws.

What are mallets and cartilage instruments used for?

Driving osteotomes, chisels and gouges in rhinoplasty and bone surgery; preparing septal and rib cartilage grafts by crushing, morselizing, slicing and dicing; dorsal augmentation with free diced cartilage; and otoplasty.

How BusinessMed mallets and cartilage instruments are made

German stainless steel with a satin, non-reflective finish; non-steel parts are named on each page (fiber plastic mallet head, Tufnol handle, PTFE cutting board). Reusable and autoclavable, with a 5-year warranty.