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Critical Reviews™ in Biomedical Engineering

ISSN for PRINT: 0278-940X

Institutional price:	$1677.00
Issues per year:	6

Best Paper Award Selection - Editorial Board Site

2004, Volume32

172 pages

DOI: 10.1615/CritRevBiomedEng.v32.i56

Issue price - $532.00

Gas Plasma Treatment: A New Approach to Surgery?

Eva Stoffels
Department of Physics, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, PO Box 513. 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

Ingrid E. Kieft
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Raymond E. J. Sladek
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Ewout P. van der Laan
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Dick W. Slaaf
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

ABSTRACT

In this survey we analyse the status quo of gas plasma applications in medical sciences. Plasma is a partly ionized gas, which contains free charge carriers (electrons and ions), active radicals, and excited molecules. So-called nonthermal plasmas are particularly interesting, because they operate at relatively low temperatures and do not inflict thermal damage to nearby objects. In the past two decades nonthermal plasmas have made a revolutionary appearance in solid state processing technology. The recent trends focus on using plasmas in health care, for "processing" of medical equipment and even living tissues. The major goal of tissue treatment with plasmas is nondestructive surgery: controlled, high-precision removal of diseased sections with minimum damage to the organism. Furthermore, plasmas allow fast and efficient bacterial inactivation, which makes them suitable for sterilization of surgical tools and local disinfection of tissues. Much research effort must be undertaken before these techniques will become common in medicine, but it is expected that a novel approach to surgery will emerge from plasma science.