Tessier Spreading Forceps, 17 cm Bone Spreader

What a Tessier spreading forceps is

It is a forceps that pushes instead of pinching. Every other forceps on a facial tray closes on something; this one goes into a gap and widens it, which is why catalogs keep reaching for a second word and landing on spreader.

The order of work explains it better than a drawing. First somebody cuts: a spreader opens a gap somebody else has already made, so the saw or the osteotome does its work before this does. Then the two edges have to come apart far enough to put something between them, and stay apart while it is put there. One pair of hands cannot do both. That second job is this instrument, and it is the only job it has.

Paul Tessier is the reason for the name. He sorted facial clefts into the numbered scheme still in use, and those clefts are what this pattern was shaped to work in.

Then there is what the search engine does with the word. Type spreader and you get a chest: a rib spreader cranks a chest open and is the size of a forearm, and this is a hand instrument working in millimeters. Add bone and a lawn fertilizer, a toe separator and a dental implant tool arrive before anything facial, by about five to one on our own measurement. This page is the facial one, and our own record for this pattern carries a length and an item code and nothing else, so anything beyond that is not ours to state.

Key design features

It opens a gap, it does not make one

A saw or an osteotome leaves a line a fraction of a millimeter wide, and nothing goes into a line that thin. The spreader turns it into a space and holds the space open while a graft, a plate or a piece of the patient’s own skull is fitted. On uncut bone it is just a lever, and a lever on a cranial vault breaks it somewhere nobody chose.

A facial instrument length, which is the figure we have

17 cm, which is 6.7 in. It is the only dimension on our record, and it is the one that tells a buyer most: 17 cm reaches the midface from an intraoral or a coronal approach with the hand still out of the view. The chest instruments that share the word are far bigger than that, which is the whole difference.

What our record does not carry, said plainly

Four questions a surgeon would reasonably ask about a spreader have no answer in our own data: how wide are the tips, how far do they open, what is the tip profile, and which way does the handle work.

Google’s summary answers all four. We are not repeating it, for a reason worth stating: the answer engine naming this instrument is quoting our own page back at us, which makes it an echo and not a source. Its mechanism paragraph is our own old sentence coming home. Ask us and we will measure it.

Named for the man who classified what it works on

Tessier numbered the craniofacial clefts 0 to 14 around the orbit, and that scheme is still how the deformity this instrument helps correct is described. Most eponyms on a tray are just whoever got to the pattern first. This one carries information.

Which instrument the step needs

This instrument is one job in a sequence, and ordering it alone is usually a mistake. Four jobs on facial bone, four instruments, and this page is the second row.

Where it is used

Four procedures, all four taken from Google’s own summary of this instrument. The common thread is that the bone is cut first and something has to go into the gap afterward.

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

Three of the four rows below came out of Google’s own People Also Ask boxes rather than out of our heads: we read three boxes and eight of the twelve questions were about a different instrument.

How it compares with the rest of the family

Four instruments off our own list that get confused with each other, at the prices we charge. The difference is what each one grips.

Materials and finish

Made from high quality medical grade stainless steel. The steel itself is made to a German specification. We publish no grade number, and we are not going to tell you this instrument is forged: our record does not say so, and the word is easy to print and impossible for a buyer to check.

The finish is the same story. Instruments of this pattern are usually supplied satin rather than mirror, and Google’s summary says so with the word generally in front of it. Generally is not our instrument: we hold no finish attribute on ADM-802.18, and we will tell you what is in your hand if you ask before you order.

Without hedging: one piece of steel with a joint in it, it takes an autoclave cycle, and it carries the three year replacement warranty.

Caring for it

Clean it before anything dries on it. Bone dust and blood set hard in a joint, and on an instrument that works by opening, the joint seizes first. Rinse cool, brush the joint with the tips open, then run it through the washer and the autoclave with the rest of the facial set.

Check the joint rather than the tips at the end of every cycle. It should move evenly through its travel with no catch, because a catch means something is in the joint, and that is how a spreader slips in a cut.

Do not use it to pry. It is the one failure the warranty does not cover, because it is a use the instrument was not shaped for rather than a defect in it.

Ordering and wholesale

The Tessier spreading forceps 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 Tessier spreading forceps used for?

It opens a cut already made in bone and holds it open: widening an osteotomy across a craniofacial cleft, mobilizing vault segments after a craniosynostosis release, opening a Le Fort midface cut to seat a graft, and holding small segments apart around the orbit. It does not make the cut.

Is a bone spreader the same thing as a rib spreader?

No. A rib spreader is a thoracic retractor with a rack and a crank that holds a chest open; this is a 17 cm hand instrument working in a gap measured in millimeters. The confusion is real enough that Google’s own question boxes for bone spreader are full of rib spreader questions, which is why it is answered here.

What is the difference between a bone spreader and an osteotome?

The osteotome parts the bone; the spreader opens what the osteotome made. They are used minutes apart on the same site and do not swap either way: a spreader has no cutting edge, and an osteotome cannot hold a gap open while both hands are busy. Ours is the Tessier graft calva osteotome.

How long is the Tessier spreading forceps?

17 cm, which is 6.7 in. That is the one dimension our record carries, and it is the figure Google’s summary gives as well. We publish no tip width and no maximum opening, because we have not measured them on this item and we would rather say so than copy a number off somebody else’s catalog.

Is the Tessier spreading forceps the same as a Tessier bone spreader?

Yes. Google’s answer opens by calling them Tessier Bone Spreaders, the KLS Martin listing calls the pattern a Tessier spreader forceps, and ours says spreading forceps. One instrument, three labels, and the search data says spreader is the word most people type.

Related products and categories

The three it works beside: the Tessier graft calva osteotome makes the cut, the Smith sagittal split separators do the same job lower down in the mandible, and the Tessier disimpaction forceps takes the whole maxilla once the cuts are finished.

The rest of the family sits in maxillofacial instruments, inside ENT instruments.