Wound healing after laser surgery: An experimental study

Abstract

Healing after carbon dioxide laser incisions has been assessed in three animal experiments. Nine incisions in pig skin were found to be significantly weaker after 7 days than similar incisions made with a scalpel, but stronger than those made with a cutting diathermy. Laser excision of skin discs in pigs provided a satisfactory base to take split-skin grafts, but graft take around the edges was less complete than after scalpel excisions. Division and anasto mosis of the colon of 75 rats showed that the laser produced anastomoses that were as strong after 7 days as those produced by scalpel or diathermy division, but the laser did not produce the narrowing of the lumen that occurred with diathermy. It is concluded that if epithelial surfaces are particularly thick and slow to cut with the laser than thermal damage will impair healing, but that in general epithelial surfaces need not be avoided in laser surgery.

Effects of CO₂ Laser on the Healing of Experimental Colon Anastomoses

“…Our observations are slightly different from those of Cochrane [2] who reported a greater weakness of the laser-resected colon if compared to scalpel resection. It could de pend on the higher energy used in our exper iment which greatly limited thermal damages of the colon wall, thus reducing necrosis and infection at the suture line.…”

“…Some other fac tors which may influence the integrity of su ture line, such as nutritional status [10], ade quate blood supply [8], bowel preparation, etc., have been separately investigated by clinical and experimental studies. The in fluence of the cutting tool on the healing of colon anastomosis has so far been rarely dis cussed [2],…”

Evaluation of the carbon dioxide laser for performance of gastrointestinal myotomies

“…Wound healing in the laser incisions consistently lags behind that of the scalpel incisions. This work has been confirmed by Cochran [2] in rat colon and by Goldenberg [l] in canine stomach. These authors have discouraged the use of the laser for bowel incision in spite of the large clinical experience in abdominal operations reported by Skobelkin [6].…”

Healing of laser incisions in rat dermis: Comparisons of the carbon dioxide laser under manual and computer control and the scalpel

“…It is reasonable that tensile strength is used to evaluate wounds that are nearly completely healed (21 days postincision) and the histology is used earlier in the healing process (days [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. The day 21 histology is hampered by a reduction in the number of criteria used to determine a healing hierarchy.…”