Articulating Ablation And Division Device With Blood Flow Sensing Capability

Abstract

A laparoscopic liver resection device is described. The device combines the Radiofrequency Ablation (RFA) technology with a cutting mechanism, a blood-flow sensor and a flexible actuation mechanism to simultaneously coagulate and cut the liver tissue and detect the presence of blood flow to confirm avascularity. The present invention eliminates the risk of excess bleeding due to cutting too deep and reduces recovery time and the time spent on re-coagulation of coagulated areas, thereby shortening duration of surgery. Also embodiments prevent excess ablation by stopping ablation activity on the target tissue as soon as insufficient or no blood flow in the target tissue is detected. Thus a closed loop control for a bloodless tissue/organ division method is provided.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.