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Thermal damage produced by high‐lrradiance continuous wave CO 2 laser cutting of tissue
Author(s) -
Schomacker Kevin T.,
Walsh Joseph T.,
Flotte Thomas J.,
Deutsch Thomas F.
Publication year - 1990
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.1900100115
Subject(s) - ablation , materials science , laser , continuous wave , evaporation , irradiance , laser ablation , irradiation , cornea , optics , ablation zone , composite material , biomedical engineering , medicine , physics , nuclear physics , engineering , thermodynamics , aerospace engineering
Thermal damage produced by continuous wave (cw) CO 2 laser ablation of tissue in vitro was measured for irradiances ranging from 360 W/cm 2 to 740 kW/cm 2 in order to investigate the extent to which ablative cooling can limit tissue damage. Damage zones thinner than 100 μm were readily produced using single pulses to cut guinea pig skin as well as bovine cornea, aorta, and myocardium. Multiple pulses can lead to increased damage. However, a systematic decrease in damage with irradiance, predicted theoretically by an evaporation model of ablation, was not observed. The damage‐zone thickness was approximately constant around the periphery of the cut, consistent with the existence of a liquid layer which stores heat and leads to tissue damage, and with a model of damage and ablation recently proposed by Zweig et al.