Waveform-Dependent Electrosurgical Effects on Soft Hydrated Tissues

Electrosurgical procedures are ubiquitously used in surgery. The commonly used power modes, including the coagulation and blend modes, utilize nonsinusoidal or modulated current waveforms. For the same power setting, the coagulation, blend, and pure cutting modes have different heating and thermal damage outcomes due to the frequency dependence of electrical conductivity of soft hydrated tissues. In this paper, we propose a multiphysics model of soft tissues to account for the effects of multifrequency electrosurgical power modes within the framework of a continuum thermomechanical model based on mixture theory. Electrical and frequency spectrum results from different power modes at low- and high-power settings are presented. Model predictions are compared with in vivo electrosurgical heating experiments on porcine liver tissue. The accuracy of the model in predicting experimentally observed temperature profiles is found to be overall greater when frequency-dependence is included. An Arrhenius type model indicates that more tissue damage is correlated with larger duty cycles in multifrequency modes.