Characterization and Modeling of Tissue Thermal Conductivity During an Electrosurgical Joining Process

Electrosurgical vessel joining is commonly performed in surgical procedures to maintain hemostasis. This process requires elevated temperature to denature the tissue and while compression is applied, the tissue can be joined together. The elevated temperature can cause thermal damages to the surrounding tissues. In order to minimize these damages, it is critical to understand how the tissue properties change and how that affects the thermal spread. The purpose of this study is to investigate the changes of tissue thermal conductivity and how the changes correlate to thermal dose during the joining process. We propose a hybrid method combining experimental measurement with inverse heat transfer analysis to determine thermal conductivity of thin tissue sample. Porcine aorta arterial tissues were used to investigate tissue thermal conductivity with variable thermal dose. Different joining times were used to create different amounts of thermal dose. A 36% decrease in tissue thermal conductivity was found when the thermal dose reaches the threshold for second-degree burn. When thermal dose is beyond the threshold of third-degree burn, the tissue thermal conductivity does not decrease significantly. A regression model was also developed and can be used to predict tissue thermal conductivity based on the thermal dose.