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KMID : 1037020170060020045
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Medical Lasers; Engineering, Basic Research, and Clinical Application
2017 Volume.6 No. 2 p.45 ~ p.57
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Photobiological Basics of Photomedicine: A Work of Art Still in Progress
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Calderhead R Glen
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Abstract
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The medical laser has been in use for only 57 years. In that comparatively short period of time, the field has expanded dramatically to embrace almost every medical speciality, harvesting the unique power of laser energy to achieve significant clinical effects through the science of laser-tissue interactions. The vast range of reactions includes incision, excision, vaporization, and coagulation of tissue in the surgical field, which are all governed by the photobiological basics for laser-tissue interactions. On the other hand, in the late 1970s, initially defocused surgical lasers and then dedicated low output lasers were used in ‘laser biostimulation’ to control pain and heal ulcers and other wounds in what became known as ‘low level laser therapy’ (LLLT). The advent of the NASA light-emitting diode (LED) in the late 1990s gave researchers and clinicians a new non-laser phototherapeutic light source that has led to ‘low level laser therapy’ to be renamed ‘low level LIGHT therapy’, even though the acronym, LLLT, remains the same. Another non-laser device, the intense pulsed light (IPL) system, was added to the armamentarium of light-based medicine in the late 1990s, delivering a millisecond-domain pulse of high-powered polychromatic light spanning from the near infrared region to the shorter visible wavelengths. IPL systems are equipped with cut-off filters to permit semiselectivity in pigmented targets, allowing the treatment of vascular lesions, pigmented lesions, and hair removal. Although they are all different technologies, lasers, LEDs, and IPL systems all contain the magic letter ‘L’? light. They are all governed by the laws that govern light and are dependent on the same photobiological basics. This article explores these basics, and reports that although systems have developed in sophistication and scope, the basic understanding of light-tissue interactions is still the greatest tool the practitioner in light-based medicine and surgery can possess.
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KEYWORD
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Photosurgery, Photobiomodulation, Light-tissue interaction
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FullTexts / Linksout information
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Listed journal information
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