Tebbetts Double End Breast Retractor | Insulated or Standard Tips

What a Tebbetts double end breast retractor is

Halfway through a pocket dissection the blade in the wound stops being the right one. It is a size too long for where the work has moved to, or a size too short for where it is going. The usual answer is to hand it back and ask for another, which costs a pass, a count and a break in whatever rhythm the operation had.

The double end pattern answers that by putting a blade at both ends of the handle. The surgeon turns the instrument round. Google’s own account of Tebbetts handle types lists it as one of the three, and gives the same reason we would: a double ended configuration allows alternative sizing during a single procedure.

Catalogs write the name several ways and they all mean this one instrument: a Tebbetts double ended retractor, a Tebbetts double ended breast retractor, or the double end form our own slug uses. One seller also publishes a Tebbetts spatulated breast retractor, and that is a different thing: a flat bladed spatula rather than a handle with two working ends.

It is also the simplest instrument in this category, and that is a feature rather than a compromise. There is no light port and no suction channel on it, which means there is nothing to flush, nothing to dry, nothing to go cloudy and nothing to block. It is one piece of steel with two ends, and the only decision is whether you want the tips insulated.

At forty nine dollars it is also the cheapest way into this family, and it sits inside the band Google’s own price table gives for a basic retractor with no light, which is 35 to 55 dollars. The lit instruments on the same tray run to 280 or 300 from most sellers.

Key design features

Two blades, one handle

A working end at each end of the shaft. Turning the instrument round is faster than swapping it, and it means one item on the count rather than two. It also means the instrument is never put down between sizes, which is when a retractor ends up under a drape.

Insulated or plain tips

Black insulated, blue insulated, or standard bare steel. The coating is there because an insulated blade will not carry heat or a stray arc from the cautery pencil into the tissue it is holding. The two colors are so that two of these on a tray can be told apart at a glance, which is more useful on a double ended instrument than on a single one, because you cannot tell them apart by their blades.

Nothing plumbed into it

No light guide and no suction channel. On a lit retractor those two features are worth having and they both need flushing and drying before every autoclave cycle. This one needs washing and nothing else, which is why it tends to be the instrument that is always available on a busy list.

One piece of steel

There is no joint anywhere on it, so there is nothing to loosen and no seam for tissue to sit in. A double ended instrument gets handled twice as often as a single ended one and the absence of a joint is what lets it take that.

Which tip to order

One decision, and it is about where the cautery pencil works rather than about the tissue.

Where it is used

It goes where a single ended retractor goes, and it earns its place on the cases that change size partway through.

What it holds back, and what it must not do

The simplest instrument in the category still has one thing worth saying about it, and one figure we will not claim.

How it compares with the rest of the family

Three Tebbetts retractors, and this is the one with no plumbing and two ends.

Materials and finish

Every Tebbetts double end breast retractor 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. The number on a certificate tells a surgeon nothing about whether both ends of a double ended instrument are still true to each other after two hundred autoclave cycles, and the answer to that is in the making rather than in the alloy.

Both ends are formed from the same bar, which is the only way to get them to stay in the same plane. An instrument made from two pieces joined at the middle will eventually have one end a degree or two out, and on a double ended retractor that is the fault you notice last and care about most.

The coating, where it is specified, covers the tips and the shaft and stops short of the grip area, because a coated grip under blood is a grip that slides.

Caring for it

Wash it as one piece. There is nothing to flush and no port to dry, which is the whole appeal of this pattern in a sterile processing department: it cannot be put through the cycle wrong.

If the tips are coated, clean them with a soft brush and nothing abrasive, and look at both ends before it goes back on a tray. Retire it when steel shows through. Store it flat and not under anything heavier, because the fault to avoid on this instrument is one end no longer sitting in the same plane as the other.

Ordering and wholesale

The Tebbetts double end breast retractor is made by Adas Instruments in our own workshop and sold direct, which is why the price sits where it does against the catalog 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. Send us a sample and we will hold a run to your pattern rather than ours. 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 is a double ended breast retractor for?

It gives the surgeon two blade sizes on one handle, so a change of size during a case is a turn of the instrument rather than a swap. Google lists the double ended configuration as one of the three Tebbetts handle types for exactly that reason.

What blade sizes does the Tebbetts double end retractor have?

We do not publish a figure for this one, because our own product record does not carry a blade size for it and we will not print a measurement we have not taken. It is on our list to measure. Ask us before you order if a specific width matters.

Should I order the insulated or the standard tips?

Insulated if the cautery pencil works along the blade, which in practice means reduction, revision and capsulectomy. Standard if it works away from the blade, or if your tray already carries insulated instruments for that job.

Why is there no light on this retractor?

Because this is the simple pattern, and plenty of lists want one. No port means nothing to flush, nothing to dry and nothing to go cloudy, and it is why this instrument tends to be the one that is always ready.

What is the difference between the black and the blue tip?

Only the color. It exists so that two of these on one tray can be told apart, which matters more on a double ended instrument because you cannot tell them apart by their blades.

Related products and categories

For an insulated arc that fits around the breast, the insulated C circular breast retractor. For a flat blade bent by hand, the semi malleable spatula retractor. For the same arc without the insulation, the C circular breast retractors.

The rest of this family sits under breast dissectors and spreaders, and the instruments made to work beside a cautery pencil are under electrosurgery instruments.