Swan-necked, angled, and grooved forceps.

THE purpose of this paper is mainly to describe swan-necked grooved forceps which have been constantly in use for about 6 years in suturing cataract sections, corneal grafts, corneal wounds, scleral flaps, and also mucosal flaps in dacryocystorhinostomy. Angled, blocked suture-tying forceps are also described and illustrated. Fig. 1 shows the general pattern of the forceps. The handles are those of the St. Martin's forceps. The swan neck displaces the handles and the operator's fingers from his field of view. It is important that the terminal part of the forceps make an angle of about 20-250 with the axis of the handles so that the latter can be held comfortably in the fingers while the terminal parts can form a right angle with, say, the limbus (see Fig. 1 and also Fig. 2, 12 o'clock position). Furthermore, this "right-angled grip" at the limbus can be achieved for sutures placed at other positions such as 10.30 and 1.30 o'clock with less than usual movement of the operator's position by holding of forceps as shown in Fig. 1 (opposite) or with the forceps rotated through 1800 (see Fig. 2, opposite). This minimizing of body movement is helpful when the operating microscope is being used, especially for corneal grafts.