Plasma physicists create a surgical “plasma needle”
A new tool for precision cutting, the plasma needle, created by physicists and bioengineers, may change the way that we handle diseased tissue and sterilizing wounds.The plasma needle is a tungsten needle 5 centimeters long and 0.3 millimeters across. By applying a high frequency voltage to this needle the gas pass through it ionizes, giving us the plasma.
Plasmas are ionized gases that are routinely used in materials processing and the semiconductor industry. However, the temperatures in most plasmas are so high that they would immediately kill living cells. Eva Stoffels and colleagues at the Eindhoven University of Technology have now found a way to overcome this problem.
Stoffels and co-workers made their device by applying a high frequency voltage to a sharp tungsten needle 5 centimetres long and 0.3 millimetres across. At the sharpest point of the needle, the electric field is high enough to locally ionize the gas but, because the plasma region is very small - less than 1 millimetre across - the temperature remains low. Moreover, the small size of the plasma means that researchers can precisely address local areas of the sample.
This needle can be used to separate the good tissue from the bad. It is even suggested that good tissue can be removed and placed into a wounded area in an effort to accelerate the healing. The technique is new and there are ideas that are in the works for this new technology, but with an instrument of this precision, a lot of procedures can stand to benefit immensely.
“As well as simple cell removal, the technique could also be used to accelerate wound healing by transferring cells into the injured area,” Stoffels told PhysicsWeb. “Furthermore, the plasma source can selectively kill bacteria without damaging body cells and could thus be used to combat infection.”
The group now hopes to improve the precision of its device by developing a scanning probe to include in the needle. It also plans to equip the instrument with a “smart sensor” capable of detecting surface irregularities in real tissue. “This is only a beginning,” said Stoffels. “However, our results give us confidence that plasma will become ‘the surgery of the future’.”
November 15th, 2004 at 5:06 pm
Read your brief on “plasma tech” interested in more info or resource. Working on a report on spine surgery, with a section on emerging energy sources, would like to include this in the report. Thank uou.