Gerald Curved 180mm Dressing Forceps — Cerebellopontine Angle

Gerald Curved 180mm Dressing Forceps — CP Angle

The 180mm curved Gerald is the standard cerebellopontine-angle dissection forceps — used in vestibular-schwannoma (acoustic-neuroma) surgery, microvascular decompression for trigeminal neuralgia, and other CP-angle procedures via the retrosigmoid approach. The 18cm length reaches the CP angle from the retrosigmoid craniotomy, and the curve clears the operator’s line of sight to the cranial nerves (7th-facial, 8th-vestibulocochlear) that must be preserved during the dissection.

The vestibular-schwannoma operation

Resection of an acoustic neuroma is the prototypical CP-angle operation — the tumour sits on the 8th cranial nerve, intimately attached to the 7th, and the surgeon’s task is to remove the tumour while preserving facial-nerve function and (when possible) residual hearing on the operative side. The dissection requires forceps that the surgeon can use without obscuring the 7th-nerve trajectory, which is the curve’s specific job. House Brackmann grade I facial-nerve outcomes (normal function) at 1-year correlate strongly with the precision of this dissection — and the right curved Gerald is one of the variables.

Microvascular decompression

Jannetta’s microvascular decompression for trigeminal neuralgia uses the same approach and the same curved Gerald, with the procedural goal of separating an offending vessel (typically the superior cerebellar artery) from the trigeminal nerve root entry zone.