Human laser skin dose-response model

Abstract

The increased use of high-power (tens of kilowatts) laser systems in numerous applications drives the need for a generalized human dose-response model for skin injuries to achieve improved fidelity for risk assessment. Advancing the probabilistic approach to assess the risk of potential laser induced skin injury allows for a quantitative analysis of uncertainty and variability. This understanding should improve the assignment of exposure limits and protective approaches. In the present study, we developed a human dose-response model for laser induced skin injuries. It consists of three sub-models; one for the mean effective dose, one for variability of the mean effective dose, and one for the angle of incidence. The mean effective dose model is a generalized form for a minimum visible lesion (MVL) threshold achieved by scaling the maximum permissible exposure in the ANSI Z136.1 standard across all applicable wavelengths, exposure durations, and injury types. The variability model accounts for differences in skin spectral absorption between humans and uncertainties in scaling for the mean effective dose, and the angle of incidence model assimilates the effects of incident angle variability into the probability of injury. Use of the dose-response parameter models (mean, variability, and incident angle) for calculating a probability of injury is detailed and comparison with empirical data is illustrated.