Surgery
Michael Stolberg in Gabrielle Falloppia, 1522/23–1562, 2023
Cauterization, the deliberate creation of an ulcer by means of heat or caustic substances, was a commonly applied method in the borderland between surgery and internal medicine. Student notes on a lecture by Falloppia on this subject were first published under the title De cauteriis in 1570, as an appendix to his lectures De compositione medicamentorum.36 Since his remarks on the topic were quite brief, Falloppia probably dealt with the topic in the context of another lecture, and more precisely in the context of ulcers: Seidel published Falloppia’s detailed discussion of cauterization as a part of his 1577 edition of his notes on Falloppia’s lecture on De ulceribus.37 He also promised his students that he would teach them the application of the cauter on actual cases.38
Paleopathology and paleomedicine
Lois N. Magner, Oliver J. Kim in A History of Medicine, 2017
Another prehistoric operation that left its mark on the skull is called sincipital mutilation. In this operation, the mark is the scarring caused by cauterization (burning). Skulls with this peculiar lesion have been found in Europe, Peru, and India. In preparation for the application of the cauterizing agent, the surgeon made a T- or L-shaped cut in the scalp. Cauterization was accomplished by applying boiling oil or ropes of plant fibers soaked in boiling oil to the exposed bone. In either case, permanent damage was done to the thick fibrous membrane covering the bone. Most of the prehistoric victims of sincipital mutilation were female, which might mean that the procedure had a ritualistic or punitive function. During the Middle Ages, this operation was prescribed to exorcise demons or relieve melancholy. Doubtless, the operation would dispel the apathy of even the most melancholic patient, or would give the hypochondriac a real focus for further complaints.
Complications of Minimally Invasive Treatments for Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms Secondary to Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia
Kevin R. Loughlin in Complications of Urologic Surgery and Practice, 2007
The bladder neck usually constitutes the primary source of arterial bleeds, as it houses the prostatic division of the inferior vesical arteries. When exposed, these pulsatile bleeding vessels must be immediately fulgurated. It would also be prudent to re-examine this site at the termination of the procedure to prevent delayed identification of a postoperative hemorrhage site. Caution should be taken during fulguration as to prevent damage to surrounding structures or perforation of bladder or urethral mucosa. Intra-operative venous bleeding can generally be managed with cauterization. Additionally, contraction of the prostatic capsule itself during the course of resection will aid in tamponading this bleeding. In the setting of venous sinus bleeding, a different course of action must be undertaken. In this setting, further cauterization may only serve to intensify the degree of bleeding, as the vessel defect will be exacerbated.
Cauterization’s history in the Persian medicine school
Published in Acta Chirurgica Belgica, 2023
Azam Khosravi, Robrecht Van Hee, Mohammad Hossein Asadi, Saeed Changizi-Ashtiyani, Saeed Amini
Based on documents of ancient Persian medical reports, cauterization was carried out in the following nine different ways:Cauterization with a hot red metal (cauterium actuate): cauterization with molten metal in the fire, which involves using heated iron, gold, copper, or silver [4].Cauterization with drugs (cauterium potentiale): cauterization with caustic or hot medicines, which was done by placing or pouring caustic material on the wound site or the patient’s limb. These drugs burned and dried the skin. The skin burned so much as if the burn was caused by fire. This method prevented bleeding. The burn site was called a ‘dry root’ (Khoshk Risheh). These drugs were also used to stop arterial bleeding and similar conditions. The applied drugs can be classified into two classes:
Ovulation induction with clomiphene citrate or letrozole following laparoscopy in infertile women with minimal to mild endometriosis: a prospective randomised controlled trial
Published in Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 2022
Lu Zhou, Jing Fu, Dong Liu, Qiuyi Wang, Hengxi Chen, Shiyuan Yang, Wei Huang
All participants underwent operative laparoscopy under general anaesthesia. During the procedure, the ectopic lesions were excised or cauterised by monopolar or bipolar electro cauterisation. Pelvic adhesions were lysed to restore normal pelvic anatomy; hydrotubation with methylene blue was performed to confirm patency of the fallopian tube and finally 2000 ml 0.9% saline thoroughly washed the pelvis. All participants were randomised to three groups. Control: with no ovulation induction; LTZ: 5 mg of Letrozole daily for 5 days starting at day 3 of menses; CC: 50 mg of CC daily for 5 days starting at day 3 of menses. All of the three groups monitored basal body temperature in menstrual cycle and were submitted to daily ultrasound scan from day 10 of menses. Ovulation induction for each group continued up to 3 cycles until pregnancy.
Contrast-enhanced ultrasound-guided feeding artery ablation as add-on to percutaneous radiofrequency ablation for hypervascular hepatocellular carcinoma with a modified ablative technique and tumor perfusion evaluation
Published in International Journal of Hyperthermia, 2020
Xiaoju Li, Ming Xu, Ming Liu, Yang Tan, Bowen Zhuang, Manxia Lin, Ming Kuang, Xiaoyan Xie
In the present study, 72% (18/25) of FAA was performed using cauterization mode, which only created an ablation volume of about 1.0–1.5 cm3 in 2-4 min [19]. Cauterization Mode is usually used for needle track ablation because of its rapidly rising temperature and small but focused ablation area [19]. Here it was used first to ablate the feeding artery and showed its practicability. Because the additional ablation zone created by FAA was very small, we reasonably believed that FAA pretreatment enlarged the ablation size through decreasing perfusion-mediated cooling, rather than simply adding a tiny ablation zone. This result was similar to the findings of a previous report [15]. However, the previous researcher ablated the feeding artery as well as part of the tumor initially, which made it difficult to judge the independent effect of FAA on tumor perfusion and the ablation area.