Fiber Optic Pulsed Photothermal Radiometry For Urinary Stone Diagnosis

Abstract

We investigated a fiber -optic infrared radiation diagnosis for in vivo urinary tract tissue discrimination during laser urinary stone fragmentation. Such in vivo analysis may be useful for preventing mis-irradiation to surrounding tissue.Since we plan to use infrared lasers and infrared fibers to the urinary stones photofragmentation, the pulsed photothermal radiometry(PPTR) was employed in this study due to its simplicity and benefit of common use of the infrared laser and fiber to therapy and diagnosis.We successfully demonstrated a discrimination between urinary stones and urinary tract tissue, by a chalcogenide glass fiber -optic CO laser induced PPTR analysis.

Applications of fiber optic pulsed photothermal radiometry

“…[6][7][8] Quantitative values can be obtained by analyzing the shape of the time dependence of the emitted signal. The PPTR method was used in medical applications to distinguish between normal and diseased biological tissues [9][10][11][12] and to assist in laser surgery. 13 In most of the work done to date, the delivery of the laser radiation and the collection of thermal radiation was done by standard optical elements such as lenses or mirrors, in the absence of optical fibers for the mid IR.…”