Cutting performance of surgical electrodes by constructing bionic microstriped structures

Abstract

Surgical electrodes rely on thermal effect of high-frequency current and are a widely used medical tool for cutting and coagulating biological tissue. However, tissue adhesion on the electrode surface and thermal injury to adjacent tissue are serious problems in surgery that can affect cutting performance. A bionic microstriped structure mimicking a banana leaf was constructed on the electrode via nanosecond laser surface texturing, followed by silanization treatment, to enhance lyophobicity. The effect of initial, simple grid-textured, and bionic electrodes with different wettabilities on tissue adhesion and thermal injury were investigated using horizontal and vertical cutting modes. Results showed that the bionic electrode with high lyophobicity can effectively reduce tissue adhesion mass and thermal injury depth/area compared with the initial electrode. The formation mechanism of adhered tissue was discussed in terms of morphological features, and the potential mechanism for antiadhesion and heat dissipation of the bionic electrode was revealed. Furthermore, we evaluated the influence of groove depth on tissue adhesion and thermal injury and then verified the antiadhesion stability of the bionic electrode. This study demonstrates a promising approach for improving the cutting performance of surgical electrodes.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

surgical electrodes / tissue adhesion / thermal injury / bionic structures / cutting performance / medical tools

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2019YFE0126300) and the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, China (Grant Nos. 2019A1515011530 and 2021B1515020087).

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