Talk:Cauterization

Factual accuracy

Electrocautery and Electrosurgery are not the same. No current is passed through tissue in electrocautery, while it is in electrosurgery. So, this entire article is factually wrong. Wikindian 18:01, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikindian is right about Electrocautery and electrosurgery not being the same. His/her second statement is technically wrong. Although it is not meant to, current does pass through the patient in electrocautery as the machine-patient curcuit is not isolated from ground. Electrosurgery involves HF diathermy machines which isolate the machine-patient circuit from ground, allowing current to flow through the patient but not to ground.--MechaZawa 02:51, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I would also like to add that there is no such thing as "monothermy", diathermy is actually a greek word meaning "heating through".--MechaZawa 02:51, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

"The different methods of cauterization include burning the affected area with acid, hot metal, lasers, or silver nitrate. Such a procedure is naturally quite painful." This... isn't fantastically accurate. I had this done twice (silver nitrate) and it really didn't hurt much at all. Unpleasant, yes, but not "quite painful" by a long shot. --Shardz (talk) 04:32, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

First we hear that cauterization was ‘first discovered by Andreas Vesalius’, then we hear that it was already known in Antiquity — and indeed it was. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.162.213.122 (talk) 22:06, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

The picture labeled "electrocauter" is inaccurate. It is in fact, an electrosurgical pen/pencil. An electrocauter is generally a battery operated, portable device that heats a wire to allow for cautery. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.181.25.104 (talk) 04:18, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Empty nose syndrome - misleading / unsupported by citations

In the Nasal Cauterization section, the following paragraph/sentence appears: "Nasal cauterization can cause empty nose syndrome."

The citations given say that empty nose syndrome (ENS) can be caused by "submucosal cautery ... if performed in an overly aggressive manner". The first citation says (emphasis mine) "Although total turbinate excision is most frequently the cause of ENS, lesser procedures (eg, submucosal cautery [...] ) to reduce the turbinates may cause problems as well if performed in an overly aggressive manner". The third citation says more or less the same thing, I suspect taking it from the first citation since the phrasing is similar. I don't know about the second citation because I can't read French.

It sounds like the citations are only talking about turbinate reduction (by methods including cauterization), and not cauterization for the purpose of reducing nosebleeds. The section in the Wikipedia article only talks about cauterization for the purpose of nosebleeds, so the Wikipedia article implies that cauterization to reduce nosebleeds can cause ENS which is not supported by the citations.

This should be clarified. I want to Be Bold and do it myself but I would rather leave it to somebody more knowledgeable in case I am wrong - I don't want to mislead people about a medical issue. 49.180.186.95 (talk) 22:33, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

cautery not surgery

Electrosurgery pencil uses the patient's body to close the electrical circuit. It uses AC, it has 2 types: monopolar and bipolar. The monopolar type has a separate return electrode, which is the dispersive pad.

Electrocautery pencil does NOT pass electrical current through the patient's body. It applies heat to the patient, not electricity. Electricity (DC) is only present inside the electrocautery forceps to produce the necessary heat, as evidenced by the more precise term "thermocautery". Mechlia (talk) 23:19, 13 September 2025 (UTC)

Defunct external link

The problem

Footnote "[1]" (as of the Latest revision as of 13:48, 25 November 2025 version of this article) is coded in the wikitext as:

<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cautery?qsrc=2888 |title=Dictionary definition, retrieved: 2009-03-07.}}</ref>

but the "no longer operational" status of that [erstwhile] third-level domain name "dictionary.reference.com" is so far from being able to even "fail correctly", that ... even the error messages -- e.g.

"Requested host does not match any Subject Alternative Names (SANs) on TLS certificate [4518c1d2b73b3e298e56aae9e260ea826b45696e3ccdc0d4135543f16c1c5f4b] in use with this connection.

Visit https://www.fastly.com/documentation/guides/concepts/errors/#routing-errors for more information."

and

the contents seen at https://help.askmediagroup.com/hc/en-us/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=What+is+%22dictionary.reference.com%22%3F -- namely

No results for "What is dictionary.reference.com?"

-- are confusing and/or incorrect.

What to do about it

Good question!
Getting [A] some advice from someone who can remember (or find out) what the "original intent" was, here -- (including, e.g., how it used to work) -- might help.

Eventually, once we can reach [B] some consensus (with or without [A] first), it might be appropriate to change that erstwhile third-level domain name, "dictionary.reference.com", to some web address that actually still works, ... such as "dictionary.com".

Any comments?

Any advice would be appreciated. --Mike Schwartz (talk) 15:22, 11 December 2025 (UTC)