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Concept
Laser surgery
Summary
Laser surgery is a type of surgery that uses a laser (in contrast to using a scalpel) to cut tissue.
Examples include the use of a laser scalpel in otherwise conventional surgery, and soft-tissue laser surgery, in which the laser beam vaporizes soft tissue with high water content.
Laser surgery is commonly used on the eye. Techniques used include LASIK, which is used to correct near and far-sightedness in vision, and photorefractive keratectomy, a procedure which permanently reshapes the cornea using an excimer laser to remove a small amount of the human tissue.
Types of surgical lasers include carbon dioxide, argon, Nd:YAG laser, and potassium titanyl phosphate, among others.
Photochemical effect: clinically referred to as photodynamic therapy. Photosensitizer (photophrin II) is administered which is taken up by the tumor tissue and later irradiated by laser light resulting in highly toxic substances with resultant necrosis of the tumor. Photodynamic therapy is used in palliation of oesophageal and bronchial carcinoma and ablation of mucosal cancers of Gastrointestinal tract and urinary bladder.
Photoablative effect: Used in eye surgeries like band keratoplasty, and endartectomy of peripheral blood vessels.
Photothermal effect: this property is used for endoscopic control of bleeding e.g. Bleeding peptic ulcers, oesophageal varices
Photomechanical effect: used in intraluminal lithotripsy
Surgical laser systems, sometimes called "laser scalpels", are differentiated not only by the wavelength, but also by the light delivery system: flexible fiber or articulated arm, as well as by other factors.
CO2 lasers were the dominant soft-tissue surgical lasers as of 2010.
Soft-tissue laser surgery is used in a variety of applications in humans (general surgery, neurosurgery, ENT, dentistry, orthodontics, and oral and maxillofacial surgery) as well as veterinary surgical fields. The primary uses of lasers in soft tissue surgery are to cut, ablate, vaporize, and coagulate. There are several different laser wavelengths used in soft tissue surgery.
Official source
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