Electrosurgery with infiltration anesthesia

Abstract

Method for carrying out the recovery of an intact volume of tissue wherein a delivery cannula tip is positioned in confronting adjacency with the volume of tissue to be recovered. The electrosurgical generator employed to form an arc at a capture component extending from the tip is configured having a resistance-power profile which permits recovery of the specimen without excessive thermal artifact while providing sufficient power to sustain a cutting arc. For the recovery procedure, a local anesthetic employing a diluent which exhibits a higher resistivity is utilized and the method for deploying the capture component involves an intermittent formation of a cutting arc with capture component actuation interspersed with pauses of duration effective to evacuate any accumulation or pockets of local anesthetic solution encountered by the cutting electrodes.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60 / 385,236, filed May 31, 2002.STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH [0002] Not applicable. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0003] The use of electrotherapy by medical investigators historically reaches back to the eighteenth century. In that era, electrotherapy static generators were the subject of substantial interest. As the twentieth century was approached, experimentation applying high frequency currents to living tissue took place, d'Arsonal being considered the first to use high frequency currents therapeutically. The use of high frequency currents for the purpose of carrying out electrosurgical cutting and the like was actively promoted in the 1920s' by Cushing and Bovie. In the 1970s, solid state electrosurgical generators were introduced, and a variety of such generators now are available in essentially all operating theatres. [0004] When high frequ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0023] The present invention is addressed to a method for carrying out surgical procedures wherein a target tissue is accessed through use of an electrosurgical cutting electrode assembly. Such electrode employment calls for a reliable formation of a cutting arc, and importantly, a sustaining of that cutting arc as it is advanced through animal tissue. The method described is one predicated upon a studied recognition of the significant resistance load variations encountered by an electrosurgical system in the course of its use. Such significant load variations may be witnessed in the course of very minor advancement increments of an electrode as it cuts through tissue. Power-resistance characteristics or profiles have been investigated with a purpose of generating arc sustaining power at variational load resistances while, at the same time, avoiding power application of an excessive extent which would otherwise damage the tissue being incised or a recovered tissue specimen for use in subsequent pathological examination. Recovery of undamaged, intact tissue volume specimens is essential for subsequent effective analysis in pathology.

Problems solved by technology

Studies undertaken to evolve the instant methodology have indicated that the high conductivity of the conventional diluent serves in an excessive number of cases to defeat critical electrosurgical arc formation at otherwise electrically excited cutting electrodes.

The noted studies have indicated that local anesthetic solutions with isotonic saline-based diluents, when infiltrated into tissue will lower the involved tissue electrical resistance in many instances to an extent causing electrosurgical generator shutdown due to excessive power involvement or inadequately high genera for output voltage to sustain the electrosurgical arc essential to tissue “cutting”.

For such resistivities which are encountered during an electrosurgical procedure which are at the lower end of that range and involved tissue which is infiltrated with a low resistivity anesthetic solution, procedural failures may be witnessed.

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