Active load control of ultrasonic surgical instruments

摘要

Ultrasonic instruments, and particularly solid core ultrasonic instruments, are advantageous because they may be used to cut and/or coagulate organic tissue using energy in the form of mechanical vibrations transmitted to a surgical end-effector at ultrasonic frequencies. The present invention provides a surgical instrument including force feedback system, in a closed loop arrangement that modulates the force applied to tissue from a surgical instrument. A generator provides electrical energy to the surgical instrument and an electrical signal representative of the generator load. The surgical instrument includes a handle that includes an actuating lever, and an end-effector located at the distal end of the handle. A force responsive element is operatively coupled to the actuating lever and the end-effector, wherein the force responsive element is adapted to alter a force on the end-effector in response to the electrical signal from the generator.