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Ablation of bone and methacrylate by a prototype mid‐infrared erbium:YAG laser
Author(s) -
Nelson J. Stuart,
Yow Lindy,
Liaw L.H.,
Macleay Lachlan,
Zavar Rhonda B.,
Orenstein Arie,
Wright William H.,
Andrews Jeffrey J.,
Berns Michael W.
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
lasers in surgery and medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.888
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1096-9101
pISSN - 0196-8092
DOI - 10.1002/lsm.1900080508
Subject(s) - erbium , laser , materials science , ablation , methacrylate , laser ablation , ablative case , far infrared laser , biomedical engineering , optics , surgery , medicine , radiation therapy , composite material , polymer , physics , copolymer
An erbium:YAG laser was used to generate 200‐μs pulses of mid‐infrared 2.94‐μm light in both the single and multimode configurations. Laser pulses were focused on the surfaces of both rabbit long bones and methacrylate blocks, and the tissue response was examined histologically. The depth of thermal injury was determined by ocular micrometry. Over all energy levels tested, the erbium:YAG laser produced ablation of bone and methacrylate with minimal thermal damage to adjacent tissue. Increasing the laser energy per pulse produced increasingly wider and deeper grooves in both bone and methacrylate. However, such increase in laser energy produced a proportionately greater increase in the zone of thermal injury in methacrylate as compared with bone. These studies suggest the feasibility of a surgical erbium:YAG laser in orthopaedics and other forms of ablative surgery.