Development of ultrasonically activated bending scalpel for endoscopic surgery

Ultrasonically activated scalpels are used clinically to provide hemostatic cutting in endoscopic surgery. To assist the physician during endoscopic surgery, we developed an ultrasonically activated bending scalpel constructed of super elasticity alloy (SEA). First, we performed the vibration analysis and its verification in bending state of ultrasonically activated scalpel. The results show that longitudinal vibration was transmitted even if probe was bent. The influence of transverse vibration is very small. There is no trouble destroying tissue contacts with the probe. Next, a SEA bending probe and its bending angle control system were manufactured as an experiment. From the experiment using chicken, we evaluated the validity of the bending scalpel.