Free-electron Laser - Medical Uses

Medical Uses

Research by Dr. Glenn Edwards and colleagues at Vanderbilt University's FEL Center in 1994 found that soft tissues like skin, cornea, and brain tissue could be cut, or ablated, using infrared FEL wavelengths around 6.45 micrometres with minimal collateral damage to adjacent tissue. This led to further research and eventually surgeries on humans, the first ever using a free-electron laser. Starting in 1999, and using the Keck foundation funded FEL operating rooms at the Vanderbilt FEL Center, Dr. Michael Copeland and Dr. Pete Konrad of Vanderbilt performed three surgeries in which they resected meningioma brain tumors. Beginning in 2000, Dr. Karen Joos and Dr. Louise Mawn performed five surgeries involving the cutting of a window in the sheath of the optic nerve, to test the efficacy for optic nerve sheath fenestration. These eight surgeries went as expected with results consistent with the routine standard of care and with the added benefit of laser surgery and minimal collateral damage. A review of FELs for medical uses is given in the 1st edition of Tunable Laser Applications.

Since these successful results, there have been several efforts to build small, clinical lasers tunable in the 6 to 7 micrometre range with pulse structure and energy to give minimal collateral damage in soft tissue. At Vanderbilt, there exists a Raman shifted system pumped by an Alexandrite laser.

At the 2006 annual meeting of the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery (ASLMS), Dr. Rox Anderson of the Wellman Laboratory of Photomedicine of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital reported on the possible medical application of the free-electron laser in melting fats without harming the overlying skin. It was reported that at infrared wavelengths, water in tissue was heated by the laser, but at wavelengths corresponding to 915, 1210 and 1720 nm, subsurface lipids were differentially heated more strongly than water. The possible applications of this selective photothermolysis (heating tissues using light) include the selective destruction of sebum lipids to treat acne, as well as targeting other lipids associated with cellulite and body fat as well as fatty plaques that form in arteries which can help treat atherosclerosis and heart disease.