Marius Zäch’s research while affiliated with ETH Zurich and other places

Minimally invasive surgical techniques, including endoscopic and robotic procedures, continue to revolutionize patient care, for their ability to minimize surgical trauma, thus promoting faster recovery and reduced hospital stays. Yet, the suturing of soft tissues ensuring damage‐free tissue bonding during these procedures remains challenging due to missing haptics and the fulcrum effect. Laser tissue soldering has potential in overcoming these issues, offering atraumatic seamless tissue fusion. To ensure the precision and safety of laser tissue soldering, the study introduces feedback‐controlled fluorescent nanothermometry‐guided laser tissue soldering using nanoparticle‐protein solders within endoscopic and robotic contexts. Temperature‐sensitive fluorescent nanoparticles embedded in the solder provide surgeons with immediate feedback on tissue temperatures during laser application, all while within the confines of minimally invasive (robotic) surgical setups. By integrating fluorescent nanothermometry‐guided laser tissue surgery into endoscopic and robotic surgery, the study paves the way for a new approach for safe and atraumatic soft tissue joining, especially in regions where traditional suturing is unfeasible.

Minimally invasive surgical techniques, including endoscopic and robotic procedures, continue to revolutionize patient care, for their ability to minimize surgical trauma, thus promoting faster recovery and reduced hospital stays. Yet, the suturing of soft tissues ensuring damage-free tissue bonding during these procedures remains challenging due to missing haptics and the fulcrum effect. Laser tissue soldering has potential in overcoming these issues, offering damage-free seamless tissue fusion. To ensure the precision and safety of laser tissue soldering, we introduce feedback controlled fluorescent nanothermometry-guided laser tissue soldering using nanoparticle-protein solders within endoscopic and robotic contexts. Temperature-sensitive fluorescent nanoparticles embedded in the solder provide surgeons with immediate feedback on tissue temperatures during laser application, all while within the confines of minimally invasive (robotic) surgical setups. By integrating fluorescent nanothermometry-guided laser tissue surgery into endoscopic and robotic surgery, we pave the way for a new approach for safe and atraumatic soft tissue joining, especially in regions where traditional suturing is unfeasible.

While often life‐saving, surgical resectioning of diseased tissues puts patients at risk for post‐operative complications. Sutures and staples are well‐accepted and routinely used to reconnect tissues, however, their mechanical mismatch with biological soft tissue and invasiveness contribute to wound healing complications, infections, and post‐operative fluid leakage. In principle, laser tissue soldering offers an attractive, minimally‐invasive alternative for seamless soft tissue fusion. However, despite encouraging experimental observations, including accelerated healing and lowered infection risk, critical issues related to temperature monitoring and control during soldering and associated complications have prevented their clinical exploitation to date. Here, intelligent laser tissue soldering (iSoldering) with integrated nanothermometry is introduced as a promising yet unexplored approach to overcome the critical shortcomings of laser tissue soldering. It demonstrates that adding thermoplasmonic and nanothermometry nanoparticles to proteinaceous solders enables heat confinement and non‐invasive temperature monitoring and control, offering a route to high‐performance, leak‐tight tissue sealing even at deep tissue sites. The resulting tissue seals exhibit excellent mechanical properties and resistance to chemically‐aggressive digestive fluids, including gastrointestinal juice. The iSolder can be readily cut and shaped by surgeons to optimally fit the tissue defect and can even be applied using infrared light from a medically approved light source, hence fulfilling key prerequisites for application in the operating theatre. Overall, iSoldering enables reproducible and well‐controlled high‐performance tissue sealing, offering new prospects for its clinical exploitation in diverse fields ranging from cardiovascular to visceral and plastic surgery.