The New Jersey Institute of Technology's
Electronic Theses & Dissertations Project

Title:	A model for thermal diffusion and local tissue damage from the measurement of temperature in electrosurgical incision
Author:	Vira, Marek
View Online:	njit-etd2020-055 (xiii, 49 pages ~ 2.5 MB pdf)
Department:	Department of Biomedical Engineering
Degree:	Master of Science
Program:	Biomedical Engineering
Document Type:	Thesis
Advisory Committee:	Collins, George (Committee co-chair) Mantilla, Bruno A. (Committee co-chair) Pfister, Bryan J. (Committee member) Roman, Max (Committee member)
Date:	2020-08
Keywords:	Electrosurgery Tissue damage Heat measurement
Availability:	Unrestricted
Abstract:	The extremely high temperatures applied over extremely short time intervals that are characteristic of electrosurgery result in a unique tissue damage pattern. Cesarean delivery and hysterectomy, the two most frequently performed procedures in obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN), commonly employ electrosurgical incision. While it is controversial, it has been suggested that tissue damage produced by electrosurgery could increase surgical site infection rates. While recommendations for the settings in the use of the electrosurgical unit do exist, there is no current technique for real time assessment of the viability of tissue around the site of the electrosurgical incision. Current methods for analyzing thermal damage inflicted on tissue are unsuitable for the case of electrosurgery as they do not match the temperature or time scales. In addition, minimal research has been performed on quantifying the temperature and resulting tissue damage in the vicinity of the electrosurgical incision. Here, a noninvasive methodology that (1) accurately measures the heat generated by modern electrosurgical devices at the incision surface, (2) calculates the heat propagation into surrounding tissue, and (3) proposes a simple model for the estimation of the amount of tissue damage that occurs as a result of these thermal processes is proposed.