Plasma Surgical

But the core technologies employed for managing tissue — basic operations such as cutting and coagulation — have remained largely unchanged.

The most common technique used by surgeons today — cautery using an electrosurgical technique — is based on technology that was first used in the 1920s.

The most promising new innovation, plasma surgery, has been developed from technology used in rocket engines and is now being released as a major advance by Plasma Surgical at Milton Park.

Contrary to popular belief, after making the initial skin incision, surgeons rarely use a scalpel. The reason is simple — when you cut living tissue with a steel blade, it bleeds.

The standard technique used to cut and coagulate tissue in surgery is electrosurgery, in which a high frequency current is used to create a series of sparks that penetrate tissue and coagulate the cut surface.

The drawbacks of this long-established technique are that it involves the use of high voltages and a current from the surgical tool through the patient to a ground plate attached to the patient’s back.

This can lead to unwanted tissue damage and in laparoscopic or ‘keyhole’ surgery to potential damage to organs that may be outside a surgeon’s restricted field of view.

In the last 20 years surgeons have welcomed the arrival of newer technologies such as lasers and ultrasonics, but their success has been limited by high cost, the danger of inadvertent tissue damage, or the limited capability of the technology.

In the search for a better technology, a notable Russian rocket scientist, Professor Nikolay Suslov, approached a group of surgeons in Moscow in the 1990s – and received an enthusiastic welcome to the idea of using a plasma to coagulate bleeding tissue.

Plasma is often referred to as the fourth state of matter, after solid, liquid and gas.

As you apply heat or energy to one, it becomes the next. Apply energy to a gas and it ionises to become high energy plasma — a short-lived and electrically neutral mixture of ionised gas atoms and electrons.

Professor Suslov had designed plasma rocket engines used to adjust the position of satellites in space and he scaled down the rocket engine to produce a prototype surgical device. I have spent much of my career in the design of medical instruments and devices, and was introduced to Professor Suslov in 1998, when he was seeking advice on taking his invention forward.

I immediately saw the promise of this innovative technology, but the first prototype was too large to be used in today’s minimally-invasive surgery. So we started to work together on the design of a much smaller surgical handpiece.

Plasma Surgical was formed in 2000, with the backing of private investors and in 2002, we showed the first generation Plasma Surgery system with a 10mm diameter handpiece at the American College of Surgeons’ Congress in San Francisco.

The response from surgeons was positive, and we continued to work on the device, producing the first PlasmaJet system for coagulation two years later.

This was notable for the minimal damage caused to underlying tissue, but in the quest for a more viable surgical tool, we realised it was necessary to add cutting capability.

By harnessing the high kinetic energy of plasma, Professor Suslov designed a handpiece that was only 5mm in diameter that was able to safely cut any tissue, including bone, with simultaneous coagulation or sealing of the cut surfaces so bleeding was prevented.

Our third generation PlasmaJet system provides today’s surgeon with the ability to cut and simultaneously coagulate tissue using a ‘virtual scalpel’ or plasma stream in place of a mechanical blade.

During the last few years the system has been used by key opinion leader surgeons in the UK, France and the United States, and the first papers are now appearing in medical journals describing the remarkable success of this innovative technology.

We have chosen to focus initially in gynaecological surgery, where the PlasmaJet system has much to offer, but the technology has applications in almost every surgical discipline.

At the company’s headquarters in Milton Park, Plasma Surgical assembles and tests the console used to power the PlasmaJet handpiece.

We currently manufacture the handpieces in Gothenburg, Sweden, and to meet the demand in our largest market in the US, we will shortly start manufacturing in a new 26,000 sq ft facility in Atlanta.

Using rocket science to create a viable innovation in surgery has been a predictably long journey, but we are fortunate to have retained the backing of our original private investors.

We have doubled in size in the last ten months to 70 staff worldwide, and are now poised for significant growth in the coming years.

o Contact: 01235 822500 Web: www.plasmasurgical.com o This page is co-ordinated by Oxford Innovation www.oxin.co.uk