Veterinary Electrosurgery vs. Radiosurgery: What's the Difference?

Veterinary surgery has gone beyond the conventional techniques that rely on scalpels to perform many procedures.  New cutting-edge technologies and methods for surgeries have provided veterinarians with more options.  One such option is electrosurgery or radiosurgery/radiofrequency surgery.

Seventy years after the first Bovie electrosurgical unit was successfully used to remove the remaining portion of a mass from a patient’s head, improved electrosurgery units and tools have paved the way for significant advances in surgical procedures and the use of energy-based devices.

Electrosurgery Units

ESUs give veterinarians the ability to vary the settings for the voltage and currents to produce a variety of waveforms to achieve a specific surgical effect, such as cutting, blended cut, coagulation, fulguration and bipolar mode.

When set in cutting mode at the maximum power output, the generator produces a continuous waveform.  The other modes rely on intermittent waveforms with lower maximum power.

Increasingly more veterinarians use ESUs to perform routine and sophisticated surgeries because it lessens the need for anesthesia and requires shorter post-surgical healing times.  ESUs are used for a variety of veterinarian applications, including:

Neutering

Emergency care

Dermal lesions treatment

Ear cropping

Eyelid surgery

More than 80 percent of all surgeries rely on ESU equipment, including the veterinary applications of the Bovie Aaron ESUs.

Monopolar versus Bipolar Methodologies

Monopolar electrosurgery constitutes the most common method of operation.  This method utilizes a handpiece with an electrode tip to make the incision and coagulate the blood vessels in the area.  To operate properly the ESU requires a completed electrical circuit.  The circuit incorporates a high-frequency oscillator and amplifiers within the electrosurgery unit, connecting cables and electrodes, and a return pad connected back to the unit.  The return pad must be properly placed on the opposing side from the surgical site to complete the circuit and restrict any stray electrical pathways.

The bipolar electrosurgery method uses two electrodes in a forceps style that allows the current to pass from one tip, through the tissue, to the opposite tip. This eliminates the need for a return pad.  This method requires the target tissue to be grasped between the two electrode tips, and is most commonly used for pinpoint coagulation.

Benefits of Electrosurgery

The use of electrosurgical units present a decided advantage over that of cold steel scalpels.  Here are some of those advantages:

Superior sculpting precision.

Offers the ability to stop bleeding in the surgical area.

Reduce risk of hemorrhaging.

Decrease length of recovery for pet patient.

Less time spent at the veterinarian facility.

Radiosurgery

The terms radiosurgery and radiofrequency surgery have recently been introduced into the marketplace.  A common question is how these devices differ from electrosurgery units.  According to some there is no difference between the terms electrosurgery and radiosurgery since they are both used to refer to similar devices.  Both technologies rely on the use of electrical energy in the radio frequency range to desiccate (remove intra- and extra-cellular fluid), fulgurate (tissue destruction by sparking), or cut target tissues with or without coagulation.  The primary difference between the devices involves the portion of the radiofrequency range in which they operate.

Electrosurgery units generally operate in the 500 kHz range, the lower end of the AM radio band; while the, so-called, radiosurgery units operate at the 4.0 mHz frequency range, which is in the shortwave and CB (Citizen’s Band) bandwidth. The claim of the manufacturers of these radiosurgery units is that, since their units operate at such a higher frequency, the depth of tissue penetration is less, making it more safe to use.  The opposing argument would be that, since the depth of tissue penetration is less, more passes are required to achieve the desired result which requires more time.

When evaluating veterinary applications of the Bovie Aaron and other units, it is important to remember that both ESU and radiosurgery devices operate in the radio frequency range.  So both are radiofrequency surgery devices.  However, the cost can frequently be VERY different.