Mid-infrared absorption by soft tissue sarcoma and cell ablation utilizing a mid-infrared interband cascade laser

Abstract

. Significance: Mid-infrared (MIR) light refers to wavelengths ranging from 3 to and is the most attractive spectral region for ablation of soft and hard tissues. This is because building blocks of biological tissue, such as water, proteins, and lipids, exhibit molecular vibrational modes in the MIR wavelengths that result in strong MIR light absorption. To date, researchers investigating MIR lasers for surgical applications have used bulky light sources, such as free electron lasers, nonlinear light generators, and carbon dioxide lasers. We demonstrate the use of a tiny (a few microns wide, a few millimeters long) MIR interband cascade laser (ICL) for surgical thermal ablation applications. Aim: Our goal is to demonstrate the use of an ICL for surgical thermal ablation and demonstrate its efficacy in ablating normal fibroblasts and primary undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma tumor cells (C1619). Approach: We conducted Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy analysis of healthy and cancerous tissue samples, which indicated that the absorption of tumor tissue is higher than healthy tissue around wavelength. These results enabled us to select an ICL emission wavelength, , of to probe normal fibroblast and primary undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma cell survival after ICL exposure. Results: We show that the absorption of tumorous tissue is higher than that of healthy tissues around the MIR wavelength. We demonstrate that the ICL is able to ablate cancer cells at very low-power levels that can be clinically implemented but that this effect does not appear to be specific to C1619 when compared to normal fibroblasts. Conclusions: Our study demonstrates that ICLs may represent an exciting new avenue toward precise laser-based thermal ablation.

Toward the use of diffuse reflection spectroscopy for intra-operative tissue discrimination during sarcoma surgery

“…24 Larson et al used mid-infrared spectroscopy to show differences in absorption between sarcoma tissue and healthy tissue for laser ablation of sarcoma, but no classification was performed. 25 Finally, Gong et al implemented intraoperative margin assessment based on ICG in patients with STSs. 26 The ICG margins matched the permanent pathology margins in 56% of the patients.…”

“…Larson et al. used mid-infrared spectroscopy to show differences in absorption between sarcoma tissue and healthy tissue for laser ablation of sarcoma, but no classification was performed 25 . Finally, Gong et al.…”

“…Optical techniques have emerged as a potentially valuable tool for tissue sensing purposes in the medical field. For STS, a couple of optical techniques have been studied in recent years, including near-infrared autofluorescence, 22 Raman spectroscopy, 23 , 24 mid-infrared spectroscopy, 25 and indocyanine green fluorescence imaging (ICG). 26 While some of these methods have demonstrated promising outcomes, not every approach is readily available, has a sufficient measurement volume, is offered as an automatic tumor detection model, or achieved an adequate level of accuracy for clinical application.…”

Transarterial Embolization and Percutaneous Ablation of Primary and Metastatic Soft Tissue Tumors

“…The temperature and duration produced by the radiofrequency waves can be adjusted during the procedure. PLA involves the use of diode lasers, neodymium yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:YAG) lasers, and CO 2 lasers [58,59]. Diode lasers emit infrared light and are used for the ablation of tissue.…”

Generation of 8–20 μm Mid-Infrared Ultrashort Femtosecond Laser Pulses via Difference Frequency Generation

“…The MIR ultrashort pulsed lasers can be widely used in gas detection [7,8], cancer diagnosis [9][10][11], pollutant monitoring [12][13][14][15][16], food quality control [17][18][19][20][21][22][23], and other aspects [24][25][26][27][28], since they own much broader spectral ranges than ultrafast lasers in visible and near-infrared region. In addition, they also play essential roles in strong-field physics [29][30][31][32][33][34], laser surgery [35][36][37][38][39][40][41], attosecond science [42,43], and molecule dynamics [44][45][46] (as shown in Figure 1b), as they feature the ultrashort time domain and have the potential to achieve peak powers. Therefore, there is an essential and broad application value in MIR ultrashort pulse generation research.…”