On November 21, 2011 Bovie Medical Corporation announced that it had been awarded a patent for a "Method to Generate a Plasma Stream for Performing Electrosurgery" (boviemed.com, 2012), naming the procedure J-Plasma.
J-Plasma is created by passing an inert gas i.e., Helium, over a sharp conductive point that is maintained at a high voltage and high frequency. The individual atoms contain particles that are electrically neutral, but when subjected to high voltage and high frequency at the sharp point they are temporarily broken apart creating freed charged particles called ions (boviemed.com, 2012). The gas ionizes and now will conduct electricity like a traditional wire. To describe it in the most basic of laymen's terms, think of Luke Skywalker's Light Saber- although this beam is only a few inches long, as opposed to over a meter in length!
J-Plasma represents a potential breakthrough in electrosurgery; the method uses electricity flowing to the surgical site for a brief time, and then reverses to flow back out. The effect is one of cold plasma, which minimizes damage to surrounding tissue; additionally, without a net flow of electricity around the body a return electrode is not needed.
This new technology takes electrosurgery to a new levels of performance; traditional methods, while very effective, carried some inherent risks to the patient due to the challenges of harnessing electricity, and to the surgical team due to the exposure to potentially harmful fumes and smoke which are by-products of the cauterization process. Using a cold plasma, the j-plasma procedure offers increased precision and stability of the plasma stream, which minimizes the extent of the invasive nature of the surgical procedure. A smaller surgical site should result in faster, easier recuperative times for patients, with theoretically less risk of infection and/or other complications.
J-plasma follows the current industry trend of minimizing invasiveness with surgical procedures whenever possible, and carries on the tradition began by Dr. William Bovie back in October, 1926, when he employed electrosurgical techniques for the first time.
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