Liver Hemostasis by Using Cold Plasma.

Surgical resection is associated with blood loss and bacterial infections. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of cold plasma treatment during liver resection. Thirty adult male Wistar rats were divided randomly into 2 groups. Group I was the control group-intact animals (5 in total). The second group (25 in total)-experimental animals-had atypical resection of the left lobe of the liver with subsequent coagulation by "nonequilibrium" plasma. Histological tissue samples, biochemical blood indices, and hemocoagulation parameters were investigated on 3, 5, 7, 14, and 30 days after plasma treatment. The sterilization test was made to investigate the plasma bactericidal effects. Cessation of bleeding took less than 1 minute. Blood loss was negligible. Morphometric analysis of the liver revealed increased number of hepatocytes with signs of dystrophy after surgical intervention, which returned to the baseline values after 30 days. Biochemical blood parameters revealed significant differences in the groups only in terms of glucose ( P < .05); other parameters remained unchanged. High sterilization efficiency of cold plasma is confirmed. These results demonstrate the high efficiency of cold plasma treatment during surgical interventions.