Patent ID: 8226639

Claim:
An electrosurgical system comprising: an electrosurgical generator adapted to supply electrosurgical energy to tissue, the generator including: sensor circuitry adapted to continuously monitor tissue impedance to generate a variance impedance curve; and a microprocessor programmed to calculate a slope of at least one segment of the variance impedance curve and a bubble factor representing rate of formation and absorption of bubbles within tissue to determine minimum tissue impedance and maximum tissue conductance; and an electrosurgical instrument including at least one active electrode adapted to apply electrosurgical energy to tissue; wherein the microprocessor is further programmed to generate a moving time window to select the at least one segment of the variance impedance curve and divide the at least one segment into a first half and a second half, the first half representing a downward slope having a minimum impedance and the second half representing an upward slope advancing toward a maximum impedance.