豬黏膜氬離子凝固術之應用:功率設定、脈衝持續時間及氬氣流量三者之間相關性

Argon plasma coagulation (APC) is a monopolar, noncontact, thermal procedure that has been widely used in therapeutic endoscopy for about 20 years. However, the challenges of its application include systematic correlation of power setting, pulse duration and gas flow ratio. The aim of this study was to investigate the optimal power setting, time and flow rate of the gas mixture of argon (70) + nitrogen (30) and compare the tissue effect on the swine mucosa. Design Expert software was used for statistical analysis of the various power, gas flow, temperature and time of APC during the in vitro experiment. 39 lesions or wounds were made on the swine mucosa. First, we performed an in vitro experiment on the swine mucosa for the various power settings as can be seen on the macroscopic appearance of swine mucosa coagulation. After running the design expert, the analysis showed a p-value of 0.0020 of the APC model. This shows that our model is significant. Temperature model got a significant p-value of 0.0001. Gas mixture of argon and nitrogen produced thermal plasma which was able to coagulate the swine tissue. The plasma of gas mixture was also as stable as that of single argon gas. The two independent sample t-tests indicated that, the claimed mean, Ho: the mean of argon plasma coagulation was equals the mean of argon & nitrogen and the alternate mean, H1: the mean of argon plasma coagulation not equal to the mean of argon & nitrogen plasma coagulation. T-statistics was 2.811 and p-value was 0.010. It was concluded that there was a difference between the mean of Argon and Argon + Nitrogen. Our results indicated that, low power not more 80 watt is preferred and short time of between 1 and 2 seconds. Increase in our power needed a decrease in time duration. There was no effect on the flow ratio. From these results, it was concluded that argon & nitrogen can serve as the same purpose as argon plasma coagulation and had smaller surface area.