This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Jack E. Sebben, MD

Arch Dermatol. 1990;126(6):805-808.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

For more than 80years, high-frequency electrosurgery has provided dermatology and other areas of medicine with an efficient means of tissue destruction and hemostasis.^1,2 When electrosurgery is used for simple office procedures, little attention is given to risks of contamination. Many physicians have believed that electrical current sterilizes the tissue, as well as the active electrosurgical electrode tip. With electrocautery, the glowing red electrode is hot and sterile because of its high temperature. However, the most common electrosurgical modality used today, high-frequency electrosurgery, delivers electromagnetic energy in the form of high-frequency radio-frequency waves.³ The tip of the high-frequency electrode passes electromagnetic energy into tissue, and heat is generated from either sparking or tissue resistance. Little or no heating occurs within the electrode at the point of tissue contact.^4,5

Although a high-frequency electrode tip generates no inherent heat, many practitioners have believed that the effects of the flow of . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
Department of Dermatology University of California at Davis 1020 29th St Sacramento, CA 95816

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?