We have been making battery powered cauteries since the late 1970's, and today are far and away the market leader. You might wonder why we would go to the trouble, not to mention the expense, to introduce a new patent pending battery operated cautery.
The not so short answer, is because on rare occasions the instructions are not followed. This is despite the fact that we print on a neon-yellow label on the outer box a warning. We follow that up on the box label. It is in red on the cover cap, on the body of the cautery, the Tyvec peel pouch, in 13 languages inside the box, and finally if the medical or nursing school graduate can't read... we have pictures too. When these simple instructions, "break off the tip with a hemostat and replace the cover cap" are not followed a fire could result. Now it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that a high temperature cautery, which when activated exceeds 2000 degrees F, shouldn't be tossed in a trash container with a bunch of paper product. But every once in awhile, that is exactly what happens.
We asked our engineering team to try and design a battery operated cautery that would operate essentially the same as our current model but be impossible, or at least nearly so, to accidentally activate. Alex Reznik and Fred Baron (whom I don't want to retire yet) took up the challenge, and after a great deal of work have a patent pending design waiting for 510k approval from the FDA. The plan, upon approval to market, is to introduce the improved safety design later this year. The ultimate goal is to upgrade our entire line of battery operated cautery product, including our replaceable tip and battery cautery, with this new design by the middle of next year. Be on the lookout for our new cautery design.
Feel free to reach out with any questions, or leave a comment below.
J. Robert Saron, President
Bovie Medical Corporation
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
