New technological trajectories of non-thermal plasma technology in medicine

The paper analyses the evolutionary growth of scientific production and patenting, proxies of scientific and technological breakthroughs, of non-thermal plasma for biomedical applications in order to detect emerging technological trajectories. Non-thermal plasma in medicine might generate important innovations that could change the clinical practice. Occurrences of scientific products and patents are retrieved on SciVerse database after a meticulous procedure. Data are analysed with two methodological approaches: rates based on exponential model of growth and trends based on regression analysis. Results show high rates of scientific growth for applications of non-thermal plasma in disinfection, anticancer treatments, and dermatology. In surgery, although values of occurrences are similar to the other research fields, the trend is decreasing after 2005 due to the peculiar application to materials for implantation. Moreover, the model forecasts that emerging non-thermal plasma technology may be a consolidated technology in 2055 or thereabouts.