Bovie Medical Insights

The demand for electrosurgery is rising, not only in the United States, but in many other countries as well.  A recent Prnewswire report on a market research study indicates that the market demand for electrosurgery is set to grow to 4.0 billion by 2019.

When confronted with performing minor surgical skin procedures like skin tag removal and the removal of skin lesions, family practice physicians often find themselves becoming frustrated with the more common tools that are currently available. A majority of practitioners find that the power levels of these devices are often much higher than what is truly required to complete many simpler, superficial skin procedures, and the expenses incurred with the use of most conventional high frequency desiccators on the market today are much higher than they need to be. The average initial cost alone of these larger, more powerful than necessary units is often $850.00 or more.

Current instrumentation with traditional electrosurgery can involve some risk due to trying to control the energy spread.  Staying away from vital organs like the bladder, bowel and ureter is necessary to decrease the risk of damage to these vital organs.  There is a need for a versatile surgical instrumentation with the approach of precise control for safe and effective treatment in laparoscopic surgeries. 

More than eighty years ago, Dr. William Bovie invented a device that generated electrical current for use in surgery. Since then, Bovie, the company has used the science behind his electrosurgical findings to develop a robust line of energy-based devices to support the physician office, surgery centers and highly demanding operating rooms. Electrosurgery devices are often misconstrued as a device only for complex surgical procedures; but the modern medical practice can now use low-watt electrosurgery devices for a variety of in-office procedures.

The terms electrosurgery and electrocautery are frequently confused, even amongst many professionals working in various healthcare related fields. And even though both of these procedures are applied within several medical specialties, they are quite different in terms of both tools used and method of application.

Proper maintenance and attention of electrosurgical generators in medical or veterinary facilities is critical. The most important key to the maintenance program for your electrosurgery unit is to keep a regular schedule for the performance of maintenance tasks.  Three factors for providing proper care are: knowing what to do, when to do it and who has the responsibility for it. The person in charge of maintaining the units must be given time in their regular schedule to perform the tasks.

Electrosurgical units are one of the most common pieces of electrical equipment in an operating room. Although injury from inadvertent energy transfer isn’t frequent, it does happen, so it’s important to review safety measures and take the extra precautions to protect both your staff and your patients.

Cold plasma, also known as non-thermal plasma, has been recognized for many years. It has demonstrated usefulness in a variety of industries. Recently, however, this unique state of matter has helped professionals in the medical field to develop and utilize new powerful, but safe, surgical tools.

The term “energy-based devices” seems to be coming more and more popular, particularly in the medical industry as it relates to surgical devices.  However, when we go on-line to look up “energy-based devices” we don’t find much.  So, we thought we would put out a brief summary of what constitutes an “energy-based” device, particularly as it relates to surgical devices.

According to a review by the Journal of Hospital Infection, over 500,000 people are exposed to surgical smoke plumes each year.  These smoke plumes can be the byproduct of electrosurgical or laser procedures and carry many potential hazards to surgeons, operating room staff and the patients they care for.  This is why the presence of devices which remove surgical smoke from the air has become increasingly important as electrosurgical procedures have become more common.