Automated inspection ensures electrosurgery needles meet exacting specifications.
First used in the late 1960s, electrosurgery is a minimally invasive technique where radio-frequency (RF) electric current cuts or cauterizes tissue rapidly, reducing surgical trauma, bleeding, and healing time and preventing electrical stimulation of muscles in the current path. In its present form, electrosurgery uses RF current at a frequency between 100 and 500 kHz that is amplitude-modulated into a series of pulses with a duty cycle that can be changed to modify the rate at which heat is generated in the tissue at the incision site. High duty cycles provide high heat rates that vaporize cells near the needle tip, forming a cut. Low duty cycles (as low as 6%) provide much slower heating that cauterizes the tissue instead of vaporizing it.
