title: Tissue ablation by a free-electron laser tuned to the amide II band.
abstract: Efforts to ablate soft tissue with conventional lasers have been limited by collateral damage and by concern over potential photochemical effects. Motivated by the thermal-confinement model, past infrared investigations targeted the OH-stretch mode of water with fast pulses from lasers emitting near 3,000 nm (refs 1, 7-9). What does a free-electron laser offer for the investigation of tissue ablation? Operating at non-photochemical single-photon energies, these infrared sources can produce trains of picosecond pulses tunable to the vibrational modes of proteins, lipids and/or water. We report here that targeting free-electron laser radiation to the amide II band of proteins leads to tissue ablation characterized by minimal collateral damage while maintaining a substantial ablation rate. To account for these observations we propose a novel ablation mechanism based on compromising tissue through resonant denaturation of structural proteins.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37235.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Edwards
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Logan
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Copeland
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Reinisch
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Davidson
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Maciunas
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mendenhall
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ossoff
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tribble
mesh_terms: D000577:Amides; D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000601:surgery; D003319:Corneal Stroma / Q000601:surgery; D062109:Dermatologic Surgical Procedures; D006801:Humans; D053685:Laser Therapy; D007834:Lasers; D008954:Models, Biological; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley
chemical_list: D000577:Amides