Written and maintained by CASRAI Editorial Board
Last updated
This page describes products and general use; it is not medical advice.
A Quincke needle is a spinal needle with a cutting tip. Whitacre and Sprotte needles are the main pencil-point (atraumatic) alternatives. This page is for clinic staff, buyers and students who need to tell the tip designs apart and read a spinal needle’s gauge and length listing.
What is a Quincke needle?
A Quincke needle is a spinal needle with a cutting tip. The e-Safe Anaesthesia teaching programme (e-Learning for Healthcare) groups it under “needles with cutting tips (Quincke)” and shows it as the Quincke tip in its figure of spinal needle tips, beside the Sprotte and Whitacre tips. Spinal needles in general are “long, flexible and of small gauge (typically 22 to 27 gauge)” (e-Safe Anaesthesia, checked 2026-10-30).
Who uses it: anaesthesia and procedural teams who work with spinal needles, and the clinic staff, students and buyers who need to identify them.
Quincke vs Whitacre vs Sprotte: how the tips differ
The difference that matters is the tip. A cutting tip is designed to cut through tissue. A pencil-point tip is designed to part tissue fibres instead. e-Safe Anaesthesia describes the conical-elliptical tips of the Sprotte and Whitacre needles as sometimes called “atraumatic”, and associates them with a lower incidence of dural puncture headache than cutting tips.
| Needle | Tip family | How it is described |
|---|---|---|
| Quincke | Cutting | Cutting tip (e-Safe Anaesthesia) |
| Whitacre | Pencil-point / atraumatic | Conical-elliptical tip, sometimes called atraumatic (e-Safe Anaesthesia); listed as an atraumatic subtype (BMJ guideline, PMC6364256) |
| Sprotte | Pencil-point / atraumatic | Conical-elliptical tip (e-Safe Anaesthesia); Teleflex lists its Sprotte spinal needle with an “atraumatic pencil-point tip” |
Other atraumatic subtypes named in the BMJ guideline are Cappe-Deutsch, Eldor, Gertie-Marx and Microtip, alongside Sprotte and Whitacre.
Types of spinal needles
Cutting tip (Quincke)
The conventional design. The BMJ clinical practice guideline contrasts conventional needles, which have “a sharp tip (designed to cut through tissues)”, with atraumatic ones.
Pencil-point and atraumatic needles
“Pencil-point” and “atraumatic” are used for the same family. The guideline title itself reads “Atraumatic (pencil-point) versus conventional needles for lumbar puncture”. Whitacre and Sprotte are the two examples named in the e-Safe Anaesthesia tip figure.
What the evidence says about atraumatic needles
Post-dural-puncture headache is described in the BMJ Rapid Recommendations guideline as affecting up to 35% of patients after lumbar puncture. Its systematic review of 110 randomised trials found that atraumatic needles reduced the risk of post-dural-puncture headache, with a relative risk of 0.40 (95% CI 0.34 to 0.47) (Atraumatic (pencil-point) versus conventional needles for lumbar puncture, BMJ 2018, via PMC6364256, checked 2026-10-30). Manufacturer wording is a separate kind of statement: Teleflex describes its Sprotte needle’s tip as “shown to have lower incidence of postdural puncture headaches compared to cutting needles”.
Spinal needle gauge and length
Gauge is the needle’s width; a higher number means a thinner needle. e-Safe Anaesthesia gives the typical spinal needle range as 22 to 27 gauge and states that “the smaller the needle, the lower the incidence of post dural puncture headache”. Length is set by the product. The table below is one manufacturer’s published ordering table for its Sprotte spinal needle, not a universal standard.
| Gauge | Length (in / mm) | Introducer |
|---|---|---|
| 22 | 3.5 / 90 | With and without |
| 22 | 4.75 / 120 | Without |
| 24 | 3.5 / 90 | With and without |
| 24 | 4.75 / 120 | With and without |
| 24 | 6 / 150 | With |
| 27 | 3.5 / 90 | With |
| 27 | 4 / 100 | Without |
Source: Teleflex Sprotte spinal needle product page, checked 2026-10-30. The same page describes the needles as sterile and individually packaged.
Safe use and handling basics
Spinal needles are sharps, and the manufacturer’s instructions for use govern how each product is handled. General sharps precautions apply. For how related needle products are described, see our guides to the hypodermic needle, the epidural needle, the butterfly needle and the syringe.
Common mistakes
- Treating “atraumatic”, “pencil-point” and “non-cutting” as different products. They name the same tip family.
- Treating one manufacturer’s size table as the size range for every spinal needle.
- Reading a manufacturer’s headache wording as the same kind of evidence as a guideline’s systematic review.
FAQ
What is a Quincke needle?
A spinal needle with a cutting tip, as opposed to the pencil-point tips of Whitacre and Sprotte needles (e-Safe Anaesthesia).
What is a Whitacre needle?
A spinal needle with a conical-elliptical, atraumatic tip. It is listed with Sprotte among the atraumatic designs.
What is a Sprotte needle?
An atraumatic pencil-point spinal needle. Teleflex sells it in 22, 24 and 27 gauge with lengths from 90 mm to 150 mm.
What is a pencil point needle, and is it the same as an atraumatic needle?
Yes, the terms are used for the same family. The tip is designed to part tissue rather than cut it.
What gauge are spinal needles?
Typically 22 to 27 gauge (e-Safe Anaesthesia).
How long is a spinal needle?
It depends on the product. One manufacturer’s Sprotte range runs from 3.5 in (90 mm) to 6 in (150 mm).
Sources
- e-Safe Anaesthesia (e-Learning for Healthcare), “Needle Types”: https://e-safe-anaesthesia.org/sessions/09_02/d/ELFH_Session/682/tab_822.html, date checked 2026-10-30.
- BMJ Rapid Recommendations, “Atraumatic (pencil-point) versus conventional needles for lumbar puncture: a clinical practice guideline”: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6364256, date checked 2026-10-30.
- Teleflex, Sprotte spinal needle product page: https://us.myteleflex.com/Anesthesia/Pain-Management/Spinals/Sprotte%c2%ae-Spinal-Needle/p/sprotte_spinal_needle, date checked 2026-10-30.
