In hospitals, the mention of surgery always causes panic among patients and their families. It's no wonder, because traditional surgery involves cutting and scissoring, and blood is inevitably shed. In order to ensure the smooth operation, the nurses always have to prepare a pile of hemostatic instruments and cotton wool, gauze and other things, adding to the tension in the operating room.
Now, laser knives have been used in many surgical procedures, which have changed the perception that blood must be spilled when an operation is performed.
The so-called laser knife, is the use of laser beams on human tissue for excision, coagulation, hemostasis, vaporization and other surgical procedures of a new type of medical equipment. It radiates a laser beam of a wavelength that is easily absorbed by human tissues through a laser, and in the process of absorption by human tissues, light energy is converted into heat energy to destroy diseased tissues and achieve the purpose of treatment.
All parts of the human body absorb laser light differently, and different wavelengths and powers of laser light have different effects on certain parts of the human body. Therefore, by using lasers with different oscillation frequencies and obtaining lasers of different wavelengths, various laser knives can be made to selectively produce different effects on human tissues and achieve different therapeutic purposes. At present, the commonly used laser knife has the following kinds:
CO2 Laser ScalpelThis kind of laser can radiate the laser beam with the wavelength of 10.6 microns. Almost all of this wavelength of laser light is absorbed by the water in the body's tissues. After the laser is absorbed by the surface layer of the tissue, the light energy is rapidly converted into heat energy, so that the water in the surface layer of the tissue suddenly boils up and is vaporized by evaporation. With the emission of white smoke, the diseased tissue is dehydrated, vaporized, and coagulated. Therefore, the removal of diseased tissue with this laser is bloodless. The carbon dioxide laser radiation penetrates into the tissue to a depth of only 0.5 to 1 millimeter, creating a narrow thermal burn zone on the side of the incision, so it can be used as a "light knife" in many aspects of surgery.
Nd-doped yttrium aluminum garnet laser scalpel laser radiation wavelength of 1.064 microns. Water in human tissue has a weak absorption capacity for this wavelength, and using it as a scalpel to remove tissue is slightly less effective than a carbon dioxide laser. However, the laser beam of this wavelength has a stronger penetrating ability and can penetrate y into the tissues, causing the proteins therein to coagulate for the purpose of curing the disease. Another aspect that is different from the carbon dioxide laser beam is that it can be smoothly transmitted through fiber optics to heat and stop bleeding in parts of the body that are not easily accessible from the inside (e.g., thoracic cavity, abdominal cavity, etc.) using endoscopic techniques.
Argon Ion Laser ScalpelThe radiation wavelength of the argon ion laser is 0.488 to 0.515 micrometers, which can hardly be absorbed by the water in the human tissues, but it can be absorbed by the hemoglobin prions in the blood, so that the blood in the blood vessels is thus coagulated, and therefore has a very good effect of stopping the bleeding.
Combination of laser scalpel in recent years, the emergence of some "combination of laser scalpel". Such as neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet laser and carbon dioxide laser synthesis of the so-called "combined laser scalpel", is the two kinds of laser coaxial work, through the mirror and focusing effect on human tissue. Blood-rich organs (e.g., liver, spleen) can be treated in this way. It is characterized by hemostasis and coagulation while cutting, so bleeding is minimal and time is fast.
The infrared laser light radiated by carbon dioxide lasers and yttrium aluminum garnet lasers is often invisible, which makes it difficult to perform procedures requiring high precision, such as removing internal organs. In order to solve this problem, in the early domestic laser surgery, and carbon dioxide laser installed side by side with a helium-neon laser can emit bright red visible laser beam. The two lasers worked in synchronization, and the optical system guided the two laser beams on a coaxial optical path so that surgery could be performed as indicated by a bright red beam. In order to reduce the cost, reduce the volume, save energy, in the recent import of carbon dioxide laser surgical instruments, commonly used in the laser diode as a guiding beam, the effect is about the same as the use of helium-neon laser, it is worthwhile for China's technicians to learn from.
The current optical path of the carbon dioxide laser scalpel, there are a number of joints equipped with optical mirrors, so that there can be a greater degree of freedom, but more of such joints, will bring the inconvenience of operation. Therefore, the development of special fiber optic materials has been started with a view to refer the fiber optic with better flexibility to the carbon dioxide laser knife to replace the bulky optical joints. Such as KRS-5, TIBr and other crystalline fibers. While in the yttrium aluminum garnet laser knife, the quartz fiber can be used as a good flexible light guide optical path, with the endoscope, the laser will be directed to the body.
Diode laser scalpel is well known, the use of semiconductor diode laser, the power is generally smaller, can only be applied to communications, audio, monitoring and other fields, and directly for cutting products are extremely rare. However, the UK launched Diomed-type diode surgical system breaks this traditional concept. It is said to be the world's first such laser applied to surgery, the wavelength of 805 nanometers, can use single-mode fiber, the output of 30 to 35 watts of power. It can be applied to any contact or non-contact surgical procedure. Its strong market competitiveness is due to three factors: first, the use of diode lasers, which reduces investment costs; second, compared with other lasers, diode laser systems have a long life and are maintenance-free. Third, the whole system is compact, small size, easy to carry, and can be moved freely in clinical applications.