curette
Meaning of curette: A curette is a handheld surgical tool used to scrape or scoop tissue, debris, or growths from a body surface or cavity.
Definition of curette
A curette is a surgical instrument with a scoop, ring, or spoon-shaped tip and a sharpened edge, designed to scrape, cut, or remove tissue, debris, or small growths from a body surface or cavity by a motion called curettage.
Curettes come in many sizes and tip shapes suited to different procedures, from small dermatologic curettes used to remove a skin lesion to larger curettes used during gynecologic or orthopedic procedures. The instrument allows a clinician to remove tissue with more control than cutting with a blade alone, particularly in curved or hollow spaces such as the uterine lining or a bone cavity.
Material obtained with a curette is often sent for laboratory examination to help establish a diagnosis.
Used in a sentence
The dermatologist used a curette to remove the superficial skin lesion for biopsy.
Good to know
A curette removes tissue by scraping rather than by cutting with a blade, which can affect how the resulting specimen appears to a pathologist compared with a sample obtained by excision.
Word origin
Where “curette” comes from
From French curette, derived from curer, meaning "to cleanse," ultimately from Latin curare, meaning "to take care of."