The goal of this study was an in vitro evaluation of one dimension dynamic ablation of hard bone tissue with pulse CO₂ laser. The tissue model was bovine shank bone which was put on a PC-controlled motorized linear drive stage and move repeatedly through the focused beam. Pulse CO₂ laser wavelength 10.6μm was focused down to a spot size of 510μm on the tissue sample surface. radiant exposure ranged from 5J/cm² to 45J/cm², repetition rates was 60Hz. After irradiation, the groove morphology produced by laser ablation were examined by optical coherent tomography (OCT) and light microscope following standard histological processing. Quantitative measurement of geometry and thermal damage of ablation groove was presented. It was shown that the width and depth of ablation groove and the zone of collateral thermal damage created in hard bone sample increased steadily with laser fluence. The results suggest that pulse CO₂ laser can be a suitable candidate to cut hard bone tissue, and laser radiant exposure has an important effect on ablation rate and collateral thermal damage.

Date Published: 8 January 2008
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 6826, Optics in Health Care and Biomedical Optics III, 68260I (8 January 2008); doi: 10.1117/12.756842

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6826:
Optics in Health Care and Biomedical Optics III
Xingde Li; Qingming Luo; Ying Gu M.D., Editor(s)