Spinal needle
A thin, small-gauge needle with either a cutting bevel (Quincke) or an atraumatic pencil-point tip (Whitacre/Sprotte), used to puncture the subarachnoid space.
How it is used
Used to administer spinal (intrathecal) anesthesia by injecting local anesthetic into the cerebrospinal fluid, and also for diagnostic lumbar punctures.
Clinical tip
Pencil-point tips (Whitacre/Sprotte) reduce the incidence of post-dural-puncture headache compared with cutting-bevel Quincke needles.
Sources
This entry is part of the Instriq catalog, researched and written per specialty from real web research -- never generated or invented without verification -- and reviewed skeptically and independently before publication. How this catalog is written.
Image: Jojo (Wikimedia Commons). License Public Domain. View original source.
History
Added to the catalog on 2026-10-05.
Dates derived from the project's public version-control history on GitHub, not a live collaborative edit log.