Retractor (medicine)

[1] The broad term retractor typically describes a simple steel tool possessing a curved, hooked, or angled blade, which is manually manipulated to help maintain a desired position of tissue during surgery.

Retractors can also be "self-retaining" and no longer need to be held once inserted, having two or more opposing blades or hooks which are separated via spring, ratchet, worm gear or other method.

Different surgery specialties can have specific kinds of retractors – e.g., for certain kinds of spinal surgery, such as Minimally Invasive Transforaminal Lumbar Interbody Fusions, some retractors are fitted both with suction and with fiberoptic lights to keep deep surgical wounds both dry and illuminated.

As the use of tools evolved, a variety of instruments came about to substitute for the use of hooked or grasping fingers in the butchering of meat or dissection of bodies.

In 1000 CE Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi, also known as Albucasis or Abulcasis, described a variety of surgical instruments including retractors in his famous text Al-Tasrif.