Jump to content

Trephine

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The printable version is no longer supported and may have rendering errors. Please update your browser bookmarks and please use the default browser print function instead.
A trephine with a center pin can be seen on the left.
Dr. John Clarke trepanning a skull, ca. 1664, in one of the earliest American portraits. Clarke has a trephine in his right hand. The painting is in Harvard Medical School.[1]

A trephine (/trɪˈfaɪn/; from Greek τρύπανον, trypanon 'instrument for boring')[2] is a surgical instrument with a cylindrical blade. It can be of one of several dimensions and designs depending on what it is meant to be used for. They may be specially designed for obtaining a cylindrically shaped core of bone that can be used for tests and bone studies, cutting holes in bones (e.g., the skull) or for cutting out a round piece of the cornea for eye surgery.

A cylindrically shaped core of bone (or bone biopsy) obtained with a bone marrow trephine is usually examined in the histopathology department of a hospital under a microscope. It shows the pattern and cellularity of the bone marrow as it lay in the bone and is a useful diagnostic tool in certain circumstances such as bone marrow cancer and leukemia.[citation needed]

See also

References

  1. ^ Holmes, Oliver Wendell (September 18, 2008). Medical Essays.
  2. ^ τρύπανον. Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; A Greek–English Lexicon at the Perseus Project.
  • "Trepan" . The American Cyclopædia. 1879.


Stub icon

This article related to medical equipment is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Trephine&oldid=1246361923"