Comparison of violet diode laser with CO 2 laser in surgical performance of soft tissues

The violet diode laser (405nm) has recently begun to be studied for surgical use and authors reported the soft tissue could be effectively incised by irradiation power of even less than 1W. The wavelength of this laser is highly absorbed by hemoglobin, myoglobin or melanin pigment. Cutting or ablating soft tissues by lower irradiation power might be preferable for wound healing. The CO 2 laser is known to be preferable for low invasive treatment of soft tissues and widely used. The CO 2 laser light (10.6μm) is highly absorbed by water and proper for effective ablation of soft tissues. In this paper, we report the comparison of the violet diode laser with the CO 2 laser in surgical performance of soft tissues. Tuna tissue was used as an experimental sample. In the case of the violet diode laser, extensive vaporization of tissue was observed after the expansion of coagulation. Carbonization of tissue was observed after the explosion. On the other hand, consecutive vaporization and carbonization were observed immediately after irradiation in the case of CO 2 laser. The violet diode laser could ablate tissue equivalently with the CO 2 laser and coagulate larger area than the CO 2 laser. Therefore the violet diode laser might be expectable as a surgical tool which has excellent hemostatis.