Cottle Nasal Knife, Septoplasty and Cartilage Shaping

What a Cottle nasal knife is

A Cottle nasal knife is a fixed blade knife for nasal surgery, named for Maurice H. Cottle, whose work shaped modern septoplasty and rhinoplasty. It incises soft tissue, shapes cartilage and helps raise the mucoperichondrial flap off the septum. The handle is flat, so the instrument holds one plane rather than rolling in the fingers.

One thing to settle before ordering, and it comes straight out of our own search data. Cottle designed a whole family of instruments and we make ten of them. In ninety days, searches containing the word Cottle brought us 105 impressions and only four of those were for the KNIFE: fifty one were for the elevator. So if a list just says Cottle, it is worth checking which instrument is meant, because the odds are it is not this one.

Key design features

A flat handle, and what you give up for it

Our Cronin septum knife has a round handle and rotates. This one is flat and does not, and that is deliberate rather than a lesser version. A flat handle sits in one plane and stays there, which steadies a cut that has to be straight and keeps the surgeon oriented about which way the edge is facing. What you give up is the ability to follow a curve without regripping. Trays that do both carry both.

Three jobs, one instrument

The Cottle is asked to incise soft tissue, to shape cartilage and to help lift the mucoperichondrial flap. That is unusual: most nasal instruments do one of those. It is why the pattern survives on trays that also carry a dedicated elevator, and it is why the blade geometry is a compromise rather than optimized for any single one of the three.

It is one of a family, and that matters when ordering

Cottle designed a whole set and we make ten of them: this knife, the elevator, the chisel, the osteotome, the nasal speculum, the columella forceps, the alar retractor, the cartilage crusher, the mallet and the periosteal elevator. If a theater list says “Cottle” and nothing else, it is worth asking which one, because in our own search data the elevator is looked for seventeen times more often than the knife.

What we will not print on this page

This product carries no size attribute on our site. The open trade quotes a blade range for this pattern and we are not going to repeat a figure we hold no data for, so there is no blade dimension and no overall length in this copy. Tell us the length your list specifies and we will confirm it from the workshop or say plainly that we cannot match it.

What to tell us when you order one

This product carries NO attributes on our site, and it shares its name with nine other instruments we make, so the first row matters most.

Where it is used

Every use is inside the nose, and the knife is doing one of its three jobs in each of them.

What it is used on, and what it must not be used for

The second column is where a nasal knife gets damaged or does damage.

How it compares with the rest of the nasal family

Six instruments get confused with this one, and two of them are also called Cottle. We make five.

Materials and finish

Every Cottle nasal knife we make is cut from high quality medical grade stainless steel. The steel itself is made to a German specification. We do not publish a grade number, because the number on a certificate tells a surgeon nothing about whether an edge that does three different jobs holds all three, and the answer to that is in the making rather than in the alloy.

A knife that is asked to do three jobs has to hold an edge that is neither as fine as a dedicated mucosal knife nor as robust as a cartilage blade. Ours is ground to that middle and then hardened so it survives being resharpened more than once. The flat handle is finished satin rather than mirror, because a lit nasal field reflects straight back, and the edges of the handle are broken so there is no sharp line against a glove.

Caring for it

Rinse the blade before anything dries on it, because blood on a fine edge pits it and a pitted edge is a resharpen rather than a wipe. There are no moving parts and nothing comes apart.

Brush along the edge rather than across it. Ultrasonic in a neutral pH enzymatic detergent, rinse in deionized water, dry fully and autoclave at 134 degrees Celsius. Store it so the edge touches nothing: the commonest way a nasal knife is blunted is in the tray, not in the patient. Our three year replacement warranty covers manufacturing defects. Resharpening a working edge is normal maintenance and is not a fault.

Ordering and wholesale

Every Cottle nasal knife we sell is made in our own workshop and sold direct, which is why the price sits where it does against the catalogue houses. Order one for a single tray, or in quantity for a hospital list or a distributor line. We do OEM work under your own brand and your own item numbers, and we will hold a run to your pattern rather than ours if you send us a sample. Stock items ship from our own workshop. Backorder items take 10 to 12 working days to make. Every instrument carries a three year replacement warranty against manufacturing defects. Production is controlled under an ISO 13485 quality management system.

Frequently asked questions

What surgical tools are used in rhinoplasty?

A speculum to hold the nostril and a knife for the incision and for shaping cartilage. Then an elevator to lift the mucoperichondrial flap, an osteotome and a mallet where bone has to be cut, a rasp to smooth it, forceps or a crusher for the cartilage, and scissors. This knife is one of the cutting instruments. We make all of those except the rasp sets, which sit in their own category.

What is the difference between a Cottle knife and a Cottle elevator?

The knife cuts and the elevator lifts, and swapping them is how a flap gets torn. The knife opens the mucosa and shapes cartilage; the elevator slides into the plane the knife has opened and separates the layers without cutting. Both are on a septal tray and both are separate products here. In our own search data the elevator is looked for seventeen times more often than the knife.

What type of knife is used in surgery?

Two kinds. Most surgery uses a handle with a disposable blade, which is the scalpel. The second kind is the fixed blade knife, where the edge is part of the instrument and is resharpened rather than thrown away, and the named nasal and ear knives are all of that kind, this Cottle included. Fixed blades are used where a loose part in a narrow field would be a hazard.

What is a doctor’s knife called?

A scalpel, when it is a handle holding a disposable blade. A fixed blade surgical knife is normally named for the surgeon who designed it and for the tissue it is meant for, which is how you get a Cottle nasal knife or a Cronin septum knife. Catalogues also say surgical knife and surgical blade handle, which are those same two things again.

Is the Cottle nasal knife the same as the Cottle test?

No, and they are easily confused because Google puts them together. The Cottle TEST is a clinical examination for nasal valve collapse, done with the fingers and no instrument at all. The Cottle nasal KNIFE is this product. Both are named for the same surgeon, which is why a search for one returns the other.

Related products and categories

The Cronin septum knife has a round knurled handle and rotates, which is the other way of doing this job, and the Freer D knife has a D shaped profile for scoring. If you need a handle that takes a disposable blade, the number 7 scalpel handle is the long slim pattern used in nasal work. Everything here is listed in scalpel handles and skin grafting tools, and the wider nose and throat range sits under ENT instruments.