Jansen Ear Curette — Simple Mastoidectomy

Jansen Ear Curette — Simple Mastoidectomy

Albert Jansen, professor of otology at the Charité in Berlin and pupil of Hermann Schwartze, codified the technique of simple cortical mastoidectomy at the turn of the twentieth century — the operation for acute mastoiditis when antibiotics had not yet been invented and the alternative was intracranial extension and death. The Jansen ear curette is the bone-curette with which the cortex of the mastoid was opened in his day, removing the cortical bone to expose the air-cell system and drain the pus that had accumulated in obstructed cells.

The pre-antibiotic indication

Acute mastoiditis was a common cause of death in children before antibiotics; Jansen’s mastoidectomy reduced the mortality from acute otitis media with mastoid extension from 30% to under 5% in the populations where his technique was adopted. The curette was the workhorse instrument for the cortical bone removal — under headlight illumination with the patient under chloroform anaesthesia, the operator curetted bone from the cortex toward the antrum until pus was reached and free drainage established.

Modern survival

Modern mastoidectomy uses the high-speed drill rather than the hand curette, but the Jansen instrument remains in teaching trays at European otology departments and is the right tool for resource-limited settings where drill failure or absence is a real constraint.