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A rongeur is heavy-duty
surgical instrument A surgical instrument is a tool or device for performing specific actions or carrying out desired effects during a surgery or operation, such as modifying biological tissue, or to provide access for viewing it. Over time, many different kinds of ...
with a sharp-edged, scoop-shaped tip, used for gouging out
bone A bone is a Stiffness, rigid Organ (biology), organ that constitutes part of the skeleton in most vertebrate animals. Bones protect the various other organs of the body, produce red blood cell, red and white blood cells, store minerals, provid ...
. Rongeur is a French word meaning rodent or 'gnawer'. A rongeur can be used to open a window in bone, often in the skull, in order to access tissue underneath. They are used in
neurosurgery Neurosurgery or neurological surgery, known in common parlance as brain surgery, is the medical specialty concerned with the surgical treatment of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system including the brain, spinal cord and peri ...
,
podiatric surgery Podiatry () or podiatric medicine () is a branch of medicine devoted to the study, diagnosis, medical and surgical treatment of disorders of the foot, ankle, and leg. A Doctor of Podiatric Medicine (DPM), or a podiatrist, is a healthcare p ...
, maxillofacial surgery, and
orthopedic surgery Orthopedic surgery or orthopedics ( alternatively spelt orthopaedics), is the branch of surgery concerned with conditions involving the musculoskeletal system. Orthopedic surgeons use both surgical and nonsurgical means to treat musculoskeletal ...
to expose areas for operation.Vertosick, Frank Jr. ''When the Air Hits Your Brain.'' New York: Fawcett Books 1996. Library of Congress Catalog Number: 96-91010 A rongeur is used in oral maxillofacial surgery to remove bony fragments or soft tissue. It is also used in hand surgery to cut traumatic amputated bone to allow skin to be closed over the defect. A rongeur can also be used in cadaver dissection lab to break through ribs when removing the anterior chest wall. A common example of a surgical rongeur is the Kerrison rongeur, in which its first design was created by Dr. Robert Masters Kerrison (1776–1847), an English physician, but it took more than 100 years before the Kerrison rongeur was modified and took its current form.


See also

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Instruments used in general surgery There are many different surgical specialties, some of which require very specific kinds of surgical instruments to perform. General surgery is a specialty focused on the abdominal contents, as well as the thyroid gland, and diseases involving ...


References

Surgical instruments {{medical-equipment-stub