Empowered Patient Podcast Nanoscale Polishing of Scalpel Blades Removes Jagged Edges Reduces Hypertrophic Scarring with Tim Tobin Planatome
Tim Tobin, CEO and Founder of Planatome, has a background in the semiconductor industry where precision polishing techniques were developed. Planatome has used that technology to create molecularly smooth scalpel blades that remove all the jagged edges on traditional surgical scalpels. These new nano polished blades significantly reduce scarring and inflammation from incisions and improve healing outcomes for patients, especially those with darker skin tones who are more prone to hypertrophic scarring. The challenge is disrupting an industry that has not changed in over 100 years and that has been driven by reducing the costs, not improving the blade.
Tim explains, "So we picked the surgical scalpel because it's still the foundation, the primary incision tool, whether it's a minimally invasive procedure or a procedure with a lot of cutting. So we started with that. We've since applied our technology to many other surgical instruments. We started with the scalpel, which was patented in 1915. There's been no change, no technological change, just change to drag down the cost. So it's just completely commoditized, a scalpel blade somewhere in the 20 to 50 cent range, and nobody thinks about it because everybody just uses a scalpel, and they don't need to be more critical."
"So we started looking, and if you look at a scalpel blade underneath magnification, it looks almost like it's highly serrated and jagged because they're made by taking a piece of stainless steel, and they grind it up to a point, and that's the cutting edge. But they leave it like that."
"We took that, and we said, okay, well, what if we polish it and take out all of those jagged serrations, at least a thousand times smoother. Now if you measure the surface, it changes the cutting mechanism from tearing and snagging to a nice clean incision. So some of the challenges in that is when surgeons have been using the same thing pretty much their whole career, when they try something different, that's not always something they want to think about."
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