History of two-tipped needle

The two-tipped surgical needle was invented by Dr Capurro in 1983 (1). In the same year, it was illustrated at the National Congress of the Italian Society of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons in Capri, and in 1984 a report was published in the Italian Journal of Plastic Surgery (3). Subsequently, it was rediscovered and “patented”, first by an orthopaedic specialist (Lee 1985) (7) and then by Yanai (1985) (8). Dr Capurro’s response was published in Plastic and Recontructive Surgery (9) in 1986 together with a table from the first 1984 publication. In the years that followed, the two-tipped needle was again “patented” for various surgical uses (Vatankhah 1997 and Lindenblatt 1997) (10-11). Evidently, the authors quoted were not aware of the first patent taken out by Dr Capurro. In 2002, Dr Capurro patented both the atraumatic two-tipped needle (Jano needle)(4) and the Elasticum®, thread, an essential complement for use in the surgical procedures. In the following years, Dr Capurro filed further patents covering improvements to the needle.

In 2003 Florez Mendez utilised Dr Capurro’s needle (1983) to perform suspensive face lift with a polypropylene thread (12). In the same year, Pierre Fournier described his experience and hypothesised an atraumatic needle similar to the one covered by Dr Capurro’s second patent (13). Correspondence with this author led to the first publication of the history of the two-tipped needle (14). This begins with textile applications, which include the use of the spindle-shaped two-tipped needle illustrated in a table of the book by  Orsonì (14); owing to its shape, this needle was not suitable for surgical use, nor is it mentioned in the text in which the author describes the use of   straight  needles. The history also deals with the post-mortem needles illustrated in a table by Finocchietto  (like all post-mortem needles, these could not be used in surgery, either) before reaching the table that appeared in the 1984 publication in the Italian Rivista Italiana di Chirurgia Plastica (3).