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Pulsed Laser Tissue Interaction

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Optical-Thermal Response of Laser-Irradiated Tissue

Abstract

Pulsed lasers, by virtue of their ability to deliver energy in a spatially and temporally confined fashion, are able to micromachine biological tissues. The clinical success of pulsed laser treatment, however, is often limited by the extent of damage that is caused to the tissue in the vicinity of the ablation crater. In general, pulsed ablation is a trade off between thermal damage to surrounding tissue, caused by relatively long pulses (>100 ms), and mechanical damage to surrounding tissue, caused by relatively short pulses (<1 ms). To identify the origin of pulsed laser induced damage, the possible laser tissue interactions and ablation are discussed here and in Chapter 14. The purpose of this chapter is to provide the reader with a condensed overview of the parameters that must be considered in the process of pulsed laser ablation of soft tissue. In this chapter, pulsed infrared ablation of biological soft tissue is used as a paradigm to illustrate the concepts and design considerations. Generally speaking, the absorption of laser light may lead to photothermal, photomechanical or photochemical interaction with the irradiated tissue [1–5]. The vast majority of therapeutic laser-tissue interactions is based on photothermal interactions where laser energy is converted into heat. Subsequent to thermalization of the absorbed optical energy, heat transfer mechanisms, in particular conduction allow thermal diffusion from high temperature areas to surrounding regions. When laser penetration depth is less than the laser spot radius, the thermal diffusion time, τ th, can be defined as:

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biomedical Engineering Department, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Joseph T. Walsh

  2. Department of Biomedical Engineering and Physics, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Ton G. van Leeuwen

  3. Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Neurosurgery, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 37235, USA

    E. Duco Jansen

  4. Center for Biomedical Engineering, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX, USA

    Massoud Motamedi

  5. Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Texas, Austin, TX, USA

    Ashley J. Welch

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  1. Joseph T. Walsh
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  2. Ton G. van Leeuwen
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  4. Massoud Motamedi
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  5. Ashley J. Welch
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Correspondence to Joseph T. Walsh .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Biomedical Engineering, University of Texas, Austin, University Station 1, Austin, 78712, Texas, USA

    Ashley J. Welch

  2. Academic Medical Centre, Laser Centre, University of Amsterdam, Meibergdreef 9, Amsterdam, 1105 AZ, Netherlands

    Martin J.C. van Gemert

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Walsh, J.T., van Leeuwen, T.G., Jansen, E.D., Motamedi, M., Welch, A.J. (2010). Pulsed Laser Tissue Interaction. In: Welch, A., van Gemert, M. (eds) Optical-Thermal Response of Laser-Irradiated Tissue. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8831-4_15

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