By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
  • Health
    • Mental Health
    Health
    Healthcare organizations are operating on slimmer profit margins than ever. One report in August showed that they are even lower than the beginning of the…
    Show More
    Top News
    medicare part d benefits
    Everything that You Need to Know About Medicare Part D
    August 15, 2022
    Best Ways to Boost Your Immune System this Winter
    Best Ways to Boost Your Immune System this Winter
    November 15, 2022
    back pain issues
    Ways to Treat Constant Back Pain
    August 21, 2023
    Latest News
    How Probate Planning Shapes the Future of Your Estate and Family Care
    July 17, 2025
    Beyond Nutrition: Everyday Foods That Support Whole-Body Health
    June 15, 2025
    The Wide-Ranging Benefits of Magnesium Supplements
    June 11, 2025
    The Best Home Remedies for Migraines
    June 5, 2025
  • Policy and Law
    • Global Healthcare
    • Medical Ethics
    Policy and Law
    Get the latest updates about Insurance policies and Laws in the Healthcare industry for different geographical locations.
    Show More
    Top News
    More On Wellness Programs To Improve Health and Reduce Costs
    January 25, 2012
    Privatizing Social Security and Medicare: Who Can Defuse Political Dynamite?
    June 12, 2011
    Study: Risk of Death in Elderly Patients with Dementia Doubled with Some Antipsychotic Medications
    February 26, 2012
    Latest News
    How IT and Marketing Teams Can Collaborate to Protect Patient Trust
    July 17, 2025
    How Health Choices and Legal Actions Intersect After an Injury
    July 17, 2025
    How communities and healthcare providers can address slip and fall injuries with legal awareness
    July 17, 2025
    Let Your Lawyer Handle the Work Before You Pay Medical Costs
    July 6, 2025
  • Medical Innovations
  • News
  • Wellness
  • Tech
Search
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: Ablation Technologies Energized for Growth
Share
Notification Show More
Font ResizerAa
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
Font ResizerAa
Search
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Health Works Collective > Technology > Medical Devices > Ablation Technologies Energized for Growth
Medical DevicesTechnology

Ablation Technologies Energized for Growth

PatrickDriscoll
PatrickDriscoll
Share
10 Min Read
SHARE

“Ablation” may be generally described as a therapeutic destruction and/or sealing of tissue, whether to destroy diseased tissue, remove necrotic tissue, create a lesion to produce a therapeutic effect (as in treatment of atrial fibrillation) or to otherwise dissect tissue for therapeutic benefit. As a fundamental tissue effect, ablation can in principle be accomplished by a large range of alternative modalities or energy types, but the practical application of ablation to different clinical practices has emerged from the constraints that specific target tissue types put forth — minimizing collateral tissue damage, creating ideal lesion types, limitations of the surgical approach that lend greater or lesser advantage to one modality compared to others, etc. The technologies representing the range of alternative ablation types are grouped into nine sectors:

  • Electrical
  • Radiation
  • Light
  • Radiofrequency
  • Ultrasound
  • Cryotherapy
  • Thermal (other than cryotherapy)
  • Microwave
  • Hydromechanical

In 2010, given its long history in medicine, radiation represented the largest share of global revenues of energy-based ablation devices, followed by light (essentially laser) with 19% and ultrasound with 15%. The total market is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate (2010-2019) of 11.2%. Despite the economic slowdown of 2008-2009, the energy-based ablation devices market continued growing vigorously and is expected to continue to grow at a strong rate over the next five+ years. The total CAGR of 11.2% is deceptively modest, because these figures reflect the combined market sizes and growth rates of nine sectors. Those nine sectors, or modalities, vary widely in size and growth rates: from thermal, with an estimated CAGR of under 3%, to cryotherapy with a CAGR approaching 19.5%. Four of the modalities are forecast to experience compound annual growth rates equal to or exceeding 11%. Electrical and electrocautery devices have long been a mainstay of the surgeon’s toolbox, and they will continue to be used for the foreseeable future. Some estimates say that as much as 80% of all surgical procedures make use of one of these devices. Key among the advantages offered by these products is the ability, depending upon the procedure, to assist the surgeon to conduct a procedure rapidly—often more quickly than with a cold scalpel. Electrical ablation is used in a wide array of surgical procedures, including colon resection, hysterectomy and gastric bypass, to name a few. Radiation devices cause destruction of target tissues by disruption of cellular mechanisms, often with surgical precision, without ever cutting the skin. These systems have advanced to a high-tech level unforeseen even ten years ago. Radiation ablating equipment includes traditional radiotherapy machines, image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT) and intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT). Over the last ten years or so, radiologists have been moving towards more advanced treatment techniques, such as those utilizing multiple or non-coplanar beams, 3-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (3DRT) and IMRT, to treat tumors. Physicians view the accuracy of computed tomography-based 3-dimensional target delineation, which provides more detailed targeting than does 2-dimensional design, as another very attractive treatment option. Light-based or laser devices use high-intensity light to shrink or destroy tumors. Various lasers have different effects on different tissues, depending on the laser’s wavelength. Lasers commonly used for medical and/or aesthetic purposes include Erbium:YAG, ruby, CO2, and neodymium:YAG-laser (Nd:YAG). Also in this category are femtosecond and excimer lasers. Femtosecond lasers allow extreme precision in surgery. The possibilities for its use now include but are not limited to femtosecond keratoplasty, astigmatic keratoplasty, and keratoconus. Excimer lasers typically produce ultraviolet light, and are used in LASIK eye surgery. Radiofrequency energy is characterized by a specific frequency measurable in Hz. Medical devices that emit RF energy produce a change in the electrical charges of the treated tissue, creating an electron movement. Electrosurgical cutting uses sharply focused, intense heat at the surgical site to cut the tissue. By holding the electrode a small distance away from the tissue, the surgeon can produce the most intense heat over a very short amount of time. This results in vaporization of the tissue and the desired cutting effect. Vessel sealing and ligating devices usually utilize electrical energy combined with pressure to seal vessels and to cut off small bits of tissue. Ultrasound energy relies on the fact that as an acoustic wave propagates through tissue, part of it is absorbed and converted to heat. Focusing sound waves allows concentrated energy deposition to occur deep in tissue, allowing precisely localized heating and thermal coagulation while sparing intervening tissue. High intensity focused ultrasound, or HIFU, treats a precisely defined portion of the targeted tissue. Because this technology can achieve precise ablation of diseased tissue, it is often referred to as ‘HIFU surgery’, or ‘non-invasive HIFU surgery.’ Cryotherapy uses extreme cold to freeze and destroy the target tissue, such as a cancerous tumor. It is applied in a freeze-thaw process. The cryotherapy probes, needles or catheters are carefully positioned in place using ultrasound guidance, then the freezing agent, argon gas, is allowed to circulate through the cryotherapy probes, causing an ice ball to form in the tissue at the tip of the probes. The tissue is frozen rapidly, then thawed slowly and completely, and then is put through a second freeze-thaw cycle. It is the intensity of the freezing that determines the ultimate response of the targeted tissue, which may range from chilled to inflammation to cell death. Different cell types show different sensitivities to freezing, a fact which can be used for therapeutic purposes. For example, prostate cancer cells demonstrate different susceptibilities to freezing than do other tissues, a difference that has been linked to the presence of the androgen receptor. Thermal ablation devices may be engineered to produce a variety of temperatures in tissues, depending upon the intended usage. These temperatures may range from 39 – 40 °C up to as high as 80 – 90 °C, under well-controlled conditions. When hyperthermia is used, there is evidence of a number of processes taking place, which can include enhancement of the anti-tumor effects of radiation and of various drugs; induction of immunological processes; induction of gene expression and protein synthesis; and general changes to the tumor’s environment which make the tumor more accessible to some therapies. Above 43°C, the heat itself has a cytotoxic effect on the cells. Microwave hyperthermia is a non-ionizing form of radiation therapy. Low levels of microwave energy are used to vigorously vibrate water molecules in tissue to quickly and effectively heat the tissue to a physical penetration depth defined by the microwave frequency. Microwave has also been shown to improve the results of radiation therapy for the treatment of some recurrent and progressive tumors. The resulting hyperthermia destroys cancer cells by raising the tumor temperature to a ‘high fever’ range. Recent research appears to show that cancer cells may be particularly vulnerable to microwave-induced hyperthermia due to their high acidity. Microwave energy disrupts the stability of the cellular proteins and kills the cells. Hydromechanical ablation is energy-based tissue destruction accomplished via mechanical means, such as extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy devices, or jets of water or saline. In extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy, the lithotriptor uses an external hydromechanical energy source to break up the stone with minimal collateral damage. The successive shock wave pressure pulses result in direct shearing forces which fragment the stones. Water jet surgery, a form of dissection which has been used successfully for several years, employs the kinetic energy of the water jet to separate different tissue types by their varying elasticity and firmness. In hepatic surgery, for example, the device can selectively differentiate between liver parenchyma, blood vessels and bile ducts. This modality does not cause thermal damage to tissue and can sculpt, ablate and cauterize bleeders.


TAGGED:medical businessmedical technology
Share This Article
Facebook Copy Link Print
Share
By PatrickDriscoll
Follow:
I serve the interests of medical technology company decision-makers, venture-capitalists, and others with interests in medtech producing worldwide analyses of medical technology markets for my audience of mostly medical technology companies (but also rapidly growing audience of biotech, VC, and other healthcare decision-makers). I have a small staff and go to my industry insiders (or find new ones as needed) to produce detailed, reality-grounded analyses of current and potential markets and opportunities. I am principally interested in those core clinical applications served by medical devices, which are expanding to include biomaterials, drug-device hybrids and other non-device technologies either competing head-on with devices or being integrated with devices in product development. The effort and pain of making every analysis global in scope is rewarded by my audience's loyalty, since in the vast majority of cases they too have global scope in their businesses.Specialties: Business analysis through syndicated reports, and select custom engagements, on medical technology applications and markets in general/abdominal/thoracic surgery, interventional cardiology, cardiothoracic surgery, patient monitoring/management, wound management, cell therapy, tissue engineering, gene therapy, nanotechnology, and others.

Stay Connected

1.5kFollowersLike
4.5kFollowersFollow
2.8kFollowersPin
136kSubscribersSubscribe

Latest News

Grounded Healing: A Natural Ally for Sustainable Healthcare Systems
How IT and Marketing Teams Can Collaborate to Protect Patient Trust
Global Healthcare Policy & Law
July 17, 2025
paramedics in surgical gloves and masks
How Health Choices and Legal Actions Intersect After an Injury
Health care
July 16, 2025
a woman giving a key
How Probate Planning Shapes the Future of Your Estate and Family Care
Health
July 16, 2025
a woman with kinesio tapes on her back arm
How communities and healthcare providers can address slip and fall injuries with legal awareness
Health care
July 16, 2025

You Might also Like

Kinect Technology – A Grocery Cart that Can Follow The Wheelchair

June 5, 2011
Policy & LawTechnology

Healthcare Data Survey Shows Providers Are Easy Prey For Hackers

December 19, 2019

The Top 10 Healthcare Innovations of 2012. How Well Did They Do?

December 4, 2012
Image
BusinessMedical DevicesMedical InnovationsMobile HealthNewsTechnology

Mobile Health Around the Globe: How to Incentivize mHealth Innovation – Qualcomm Tricorder XPrize Update

May 28, 2013
Subscribe
Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!
Follow US
© 2008-2025 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Username or Email Address
Password

Lost your password?