Artifacts of Capturing Unintentional RF Energy Transfer During In Vitro Tonsillectomy

We have recently reported unintentional RF energy transfer to metal-based mouth retractor during tonsillectomy. Use of a highly sensitive current sensor to quantify this unintentional energy ends up capturing: (a) unintentional RF current coupled to the mouth retractor, (b) current flowing through the wire and probe of the electrosurgical equipment, and (c) current following through tissue during firing. The latter two are artifacts and hence undesired. In this work, we evaluate these artifacts via in vitro tonsillectomy experiments in presence and absence of mouth retractor. Our study shows that artifacts can lead to an overestimation of the unintentionally coupled current by 4.3, 2.6, and 2 times for power levels of 10 W, 20 W, and 30 W set at the electrosurgical generator, respectively. Hence, we illuminate the need for careful experimental design in future to eliminate such artifacts.