PEAK PlasmaBlade™ 4.0 Versus Traditional Electrosurgery in Mastectomy

Mastectomy is a surgical procedure performed to remove breast tissue that contains cancer, or has a high probability of containing cancer. During the procedure, a scalpel is used for the skin incision and a traditional electrosurgical device is used to cut away the breast tissue from the chest and control bleeding. Once the breast tissue is removed the remaining skin edges are brought together with sutures. Following mastectomy, the most common complication is persistent serous wound drainage and seroma, a collection of fluid in the closed surgical space. To help prevent this complication a tissue drain is used to remove serous fluid from the surgical space via bulb suction. The rate of serous fluid collection is used to determine the time the drain remains in place. Although suction drains help reduce seroma formation, prolonged use may delay healing, cause injury, and increase the risk of infection and patient discomfort. The PEAK PlasmaBlade™ uses pulsed radiofrequency (RF) energy to enable precision cutting and coagulating at the point of application, without the thermal damage to surrounding tissues that is normally seen with traditional electrosurgery. The PlasmaBlade has received FDA clearance for use in plastic, general, and ENT surgery, and has demonstrated significantly reduced serous drainage in tissue reduction surgeries, like mastectomy. This multi-site study was granted IRB approval and conducted between June 2009 and January 2011. Potential subjects were screened against the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the study protocol and were then required to provide informed consent prior to enrollment. Following enrollment, subjects were prospectively randomized to the SOC or PlasmaBlade (PB or PEAK) study groups and scheduled for mastectomy with or without same day reconstruction.