Ablation of bone and methacrylate by a prototype mid‐infrared erbium:YAG laser

J. Stuart Nelson, Lindy Yow, L. ‐H Liaw, Lachlan Macleay, Rhonda B. Zavar, Arie Orenstein, William H. Wright, Jeffrey J. Andrews, Michael W. Berns*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

126 Scopus citations

Abstract

An erbium:YAG laser was used to generate 200‐μs pulses of mid‐infrared 2.94‐μm light in both the single and multimode configurations. Laser pulses were focused on the surfaces of both rabbit long bones and methacrylate blocks, and the tissue response was examined histologically. The depth of thermal injury was determined by ocular micrometry. Over all energy levels tested, the erbium:YAG laser produced ablation of bone and methacrylate with minimal thermal damage to adjacent tissue. Increasing the laser energy per pulse produced increasingly wider and deeper grooves in both bone and methacrylate. However, such increase in laser energy produced a proportionately greater increase in the zone of thermal injury in methacrylate as compared with bone. These studies suggest the feasibility of a surgical erbium:YAG laser in orthopaedics and other forms of ablative surgery.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)494-500
Number of pages7
JournalLasers in Surgery and Medicine
Volume8
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - 1988
Externally publishedYes

Funding

FundersFunder number
National Cancer InstituteR01CA032248
National Center for Research ResourcesP41RR001192

    Keywords

    • ablation
    • erbium:YAG laser
    • orthopaedics

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