Surgeons at Imperial College London are to commercialise a "bloodless" technique for removing tumours from the liver and other delicate organs, which they say is faster and safer than conventional surgery.

The Habib Sealer - named after its main inventor Nagy Habib - uses sharply focused radio waves to surround the tumour in a thin layer of "cooked" tissue immediately around it. The surgeon can then cut through the "cooked" material without the risk of bleeding that normally bedevils liver surgery.