Coagulation has and continues to be one of the most important elements in medicine. Issues from a lack of hemostasis range from poorer clinical outcomes to sudden death. The evolution of treatments for hemostasis have evolved from the use of Tamponade with direct pressure and bandages, the use of materials such as cobwebs and dust, the use of heat with hot oil or heated irons, to the use of suture, glues, plasmas, staplers, and electricity. This evolution has continued to bring about the prophylactic use of technology in an effort to prevent blood loss. This change from reactive treatments to proactive continue to be on a localized or superficial basis. One of the largest opportunities to proactively reduce blood loss in surgical patients is during the resection of solid organs such as the liver, kidney, and spleen. Few options have existed to help improve hemostasis short of the complete occlusion of blood supplying the tissue such as in the Pringle Maneuver. Recent studies have begun to show that practices such as this may have a significant detrimental effect on morbidity. It has been found that by applying radio frequency electrical energy in a particular way that large amounts of tissue can be pre-coagulated prior to resection. A series of animal and human clinical work has been completed to help evolve and confirm the method and the device that was created and refined during this effort. During the course of this work fifty-three patients were treated at four institutions on three continents. Average blood loss for liver resections performed with this pre-coagulation technique using the developed device in a multicenter control trail was 3.35 ml/cm2 as compared to 6.09 ml/cm2 (p < 0.05) for resections performed using standard surgical techniques alone. Additionally, the transection time necessary was also reduced from mean value of 27 minutes (2 -- 219 minutes) to 35 minutes (5 -- 65 minutes). Patients treated included those suffering from liver cirrhosis, fatty liver disease, and post chemotherapy fibrosis. From this work the use of pre-coagulation with methods and device developed was shown to be safe and effective for reducing the amount of blood loss and transection time during liver resections.

Coagulation has and continues to be one of the most important elements in medicine. Issues from a lack of hemostasis range from poorer clinical outcomes to sudden death. The evolution of treatments for hemostasis have evolved from the use of Tamponade with direct pressure and bandages, the use of materials such as cobwebs and dust, the use of heat with hot oil or heated irons, to the use of suture, glues, plasmas, staplers, and electricity. This evolution has continued to bring about the prophylactic use of technology in an effort to prevent blood loss. This change from reactive treatments to proactive continue to be on a localized or superficial basis. One of the largest opportunities to proactively reduce blood loss in surgical patients is during the resection of solid organs such as the liver, kidney, and spleen. Few options have existed to help improve hemostasis short of the complete occlusion of blood supplying the tissue such as in the Pringle Maneuver. Recent studies have begun to show that practices such as this may have a significant detrimental effect on morbidity. It has been found that by applying radio frequency electrical energy in a particular way that large amounts of tissue can be pre-coagulated prior to resection. A series of animal and human clinical work has been completed to help evolve and confirm the method and the device that was created and refined during this effort. During the course of this work fifty-three patients were treated at four institutions on three continents. Average blood loss for liver resections performed with this pre-coagulation technique using the developed device in a multicenter control trail was 3.35 ml/cm2 as compared to 6.09 ml/cm2 (p < 0.05) for resections performed using standard surgical techniques alone. Additionally, the transection time necessary was also reduced from mean value of 27 minutes (2 -- 219 minutes) to 35 minutes (5 -- 65 minutes). Patients treated included those suffering from liver cirrhosis, fatty liver disease, and post chemotherapy fibrosis. From this work the use of pre-coagulation with methods and device developed was shown to be safe and effective for reducing the amount of blood loss and transection time during liver resections.