Wullstein Micro Ear Scissors — Tympanoplasty Cut

Wullstein Micro Ear Scissors — Tympanoplasty Dissection

Horst Wullstein, Würzburg professor of otology and author of the 1956 five-type classification of tympanoplasty that defined modern middle-ear reconstruction, designed his micro scissors for the precise dissection required to mobilise scarred tympanic-membrane remnants from the medial canal-wall epithelium prior to graft placement. The scissors blade is shorter and finer than any nasal-septum scissors, with curved-blade variants for working around the ossicular chain.

The Wullstein tympanoplasty types

Type I: graft placed against intact ossicular chain (simple myringoplasty). Type II: incus reconstructed. Type III: malleus-and-incus reconstructed, graft against stapes head. Type IV: graft against mobile footplate (stapes superstructure absent). Type V: fenestration over a fixed footplate. Each type demands different middle-ear dissection precision — and Wullstein’s micro scissors are the instrument by which the dissection planes are entered for all of them.

The chorda tympani consideration

The chorda tympani crosses the middle ear between the incus and the malleus; preserving it is the operator’s responsibility during tympanoplasty dissection. Wullstein’s scissors are sized to dissect adjacent to the chorda without engaging it.