Progress of medical lasers: Fundamentals and Applications

Abstract

Medical lasers for various clinical procedures including dermatology and plastic surgery, wound healings, nerve stimulation, dentistry, cancer therapy, and ophthalmic surgeries are reviewed. The fundamental principles behind the technologies are also presented. The laser spectra of UV (200-400) um, visible (400-700) nm, near-IR (700-2900) nm, and mid-IR (3-5) um having various penetration depths define invasive and noninvasive procedures. Diode lasers have been widely used in many surgical procedures including soft tissue cutting, coagulation and cancer thermal therapy. Various photosensitizers are presented in matching the laser absorption wavelengths. Finally, the principles and applications of photothermal therapy (PTT) and photodynamic therapy (PDT) are discussed in great details.

Design aspects of medical laser devices

“…Mid-IR lasers (1.9 -3.0) um and (9.3 -10.6) um with strong absorption in water and tissue have been used for super surface procedures or ablative type procedures such as soft and hard tissue ablation. Other IR lasers (1.3-1.6) um have been used for so called minimally invasive procedures such as resurfacing due to their smaller tissue absorption than that of mid-IR lasers [1].…”

“…Diode lasers for various surgical procedures including soft tissue cutting, coagulation and cancer thermal therapy using various photosensitizers matching the laser absorption wavelengths [1]. The principles and applications of photothermal therapy (PTT) and photodynamic therapy (PDT) were discussed previously [3].…”

“…Fundamentals and applications of medical lasers for various clinical procedures including dermatology and plastic surgery, wound healings, nerve stimulation, dentistry, cancer therapy, and ophthalmic surgeries were reviewed recently [1]. The laser spectra of UV (190-400) um, visible (400-700) nm, near-IR (700-2900) nm, and mid-IR (3-5) um having various penetration depths (from determine the procedures are thermal or non-thermal or combined effect.…”

“…Various photosensitizers are presented in matching the laser absorption wavelengths. Lasers have been used for various medical procedures including dermatology, plastic surgery, wound healings, nerve stimulation, dentistry, ophthalmology and many other therapeutic and surgical procedures [1]. Combining the nanoparticles and photosensitizers, diode lasers have been also used for cancer diagnosis and therapy [2][3][4].…”

Progress of nanotechnology for phototherapy: Fundamentals and applications

“…Using surface plasmon resonance (SPR) in various shapes of gold nanoparticles (GNP), such as spheres, rods, boxes, cages and shells have been developed [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. By changing the shape of GNP from spheres to nanorods, the absorption and scattering peaks change from visible to the near-infrared (NIR) regime.…”