Liquid-Infused Surfaces on Electrosurgical Instruments with Exceptional Antiadhesion and Low-Damage Performances

Abstract

Electrosurgery based on electrosurgical instruments plays an important role in clinical surgery owing to its advantages of ease of operation, low damage, and less pain to the patient. But soft tissue adhesion on electrosurgical instruments is still a major obstacle to improve the operation efficiency and achieve a better surgical result, regardless of so many developed methods to enhance the antiadhesion performance. In this paper, we successfully demonstrated that liquid-infused surfaces (LISs) can significantly improve the antiadhesion performance of electrosurgical instruments. We developed a microcontact printing method to assist the structure fabrication on the small instrument tip to prepare a firmly liquid-held surface. Soft tissue cutting experiments showed that LIS could not only significantly reduce the adhesion force between the tissue and the instrument tip but also lead to a much smaller charring wound. The underlying mechanism was discussed, and further experiments concluded that LIS have a better duration capability. Our study provides a new insight into the antiadhesion design for electrosurgical instruments.

Tailoring Materials with Specific Wettability in Biomedical Engineering

“…[218] Zhang et al developed liquid-infused electrosurgical instruments based on microcontact printing technique and demonstrated their excellent antiadhesion capacity, as shown in Figure 13g. [219] With this feature, the electrosurgical instrument not only effectively decreased thermal damage and the resulted wound area, but also had potential values in bacteria and blood resistance. The introduction of SLIPS into surgical instruments greatly improves their performance, thus reducing the risks during surgical process and decreasing infection risk after treatment.…”

“…To solve these, researchers have dedicated to developing biomaterials with specific wettability, together with adding antibacterial ingredients for further treatment. Up to date, medical dressings based on biomaterials with specific wettability have demonstrated values in accelerating the wound healing process through removing excessive biofluid around wounds, [ 96 , 174 ] inhibiting adhesion of harmful biomolecules, [ 174 , 175 , 176 , 177 , 178 , 179 , 180 , 181 , 182 , 183 , 184 , 185 , 186 , 187 , 188 , 189 , 190 , 191 , 192 , 193 , 194 , 195 , 196 , 197 , 198 , 199 , 200 , 201 , 202 , 203 , 204 , 205 , 206 , 207 , 208 , 209 , 210 , 211 , 212 , 213 , 214 , 215 , 216 , 217 , 218 , 219 ,…”

“…g) 3D laser scanning images of intact monopolar scalpel, chemical etched rough scalpel, and textured scalpel surface, as well as their corresponding optical images. Reproduced with permission [219]. Copyright 2018, American Chemical Society.…”

Self-Lubricanting Slippery Surface with Wettability Gradients for Anti-Sticking of Electrosurgical Scalpel

“…Minimally invasive surgery is becoming increasingly popular as it produces less pain, less trauma and rapid recovery for patients. However, soft tissue sticking always occurs on the surface of electrosurgical instruments, such as electrosurgical scalpels, monopole electrode, electrocoagulation and bipolar forceps [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ]. Owing to the high operating temperature, soft tissue can easily char and adhere to the instrument surface, which may trigger failure of hemostasis or carbonized eschar; leading to unexpected surgical trauma and potential danger to patients [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ].…”

Applications of bioinspired approaches and challenges in medical devices

“…Accordingly, the knowledge of these physiological mechanisms, hierarchical structures' function and behavior of whole living beings can give us inspirations to enhance the medical devices, which is also the base of bionics. Bioinspired approaches have been applied in the medical devices recently, such as bioinspired materials, bioinspired functional surfaces and bioinspired sensors [3][4][5]. Here, we just focus attention on applications of bioinspired surface to explore the importance of bionics in medical devices ( Fig.…”