Novel ultrasonic vibration-assisted electrosurgical cutting system for minimizing tissue adhesion and thermal injury

Abstract Tissue adhesion and thermal injury bring great risk to electrosurgical cutting. The aim of this study is to propose a novel ultrasonic vibration-assisted (UV-A) electrosurgical cutting system to minimize tissue adhesion and thermal injury, and thereby improve the cutting performance. To this end, the ultrasonic vibration technology was integrated into electrosurgical cutting to develop a UV-A electrosurgical cutting system. Finite element (FE) simulations and experiments were performed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed UV-A technology. An orthogonal UV-A electrosurgical cutting FE model was developed using the Comsol Multiphysics software. Subsequently, the effect of UV-A on the temperature distribution and thermal injury during the electrosurgical cutting process was investigated. The FE simulation results indicated that UV-A can reduce the temperature distribution and thermal injury area. The experimental results demonstrated that the temperature and injury depth under UV-A electrosurgical cutting were respectively decreased by approximately 40% and 30% compared with that without UV-A. The experimental results agreed well with the FE simulation results. Hence, it is concluded that UV-A electrosurgical cutting can be a novel promising and practical technology for reducing tissue adhesion and thermal injury.