Cold Plasma Jet Welds Shut Surgical Incisions

The device possesses two different modes of operation; the first uses a cold plasma jet to apply a trademarked biological film called Chitoplast to weld the tissue together. Other applications in development do not require Chitoplast, and rely solely on the tissue effects of the plasma jet.

Among the advantages of the system are improved patient satisfaction, less scarring, reduced hospital-acquired infections (HAIs),reduced pain, no need to remove sutures, reduced length of stay, improved clinical outcomes, reduced complications, improved incision healing and sealing, and reduced hospital costs and procedure length. The system requires a relatively short learning curve and improves operating room (OR) utilization. The BioWeld1 system is under development by IonMed (Yokneam Illit, Israel).

The company has so far conducted three clinical trials, which have focused on closure of Caesarean section incisions. The result show the BioWeld1 system to be excellent for sealing the incision and promoting healing and tissue disinfection, and also holds the potential for reducing hospitalization and operating room time. Other areas under consideration include external closure of incisions in plastic surgery, the treatment of chronic wounds, and internal applications in abdominal, thoracic, and colorectal surgery.

“No one has done this before and more than that, the platform of cold plasma is a technology that is not available in medicine yet. We will probably be the first,” said Ronen Lam, co-founder and vice president for business development at IonMed, in an interview with ISRAEL21c. “Tissue reconnection has been done for thousands of years with sutures, and in recent years with staples and glues. It is time for something new in this traditional market, and that’s why we decided to start here.”

Plasma is one of the four fundamental states of matter, the others being solid, liquid, and gas. Heating a gas or using a strong electromagnetic field applied with a laser ionizes its molecules or atoms—reducing or increasing the number of electrons in them—thus turning it into plasma, which contains charged particles: positive ions and negative electrons or ions, accompanied by dissociation of molecular bonds. Plasma has so far enjoyed a limited role in surgery due to the high temperatures it creates and resulting harmful effects on body tissue.

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