Development of an Automated Laser System for Burn Therapy,
Abstract
Substantial progress was made in the development of a diagnostic system capable of assessing the extent of burn injury and a laser-based debridement system that rapidly, precisely and bloodlessly removes burn eschar under automatic feedback control. An ICO fluorescence imager was constructed and shown to be successful in assessing burn depths in small and large animals. The distribution of ICG into burns and normal tissue was also studied supporting steps in deriving segmentation algorithms. The technique was also safely used in a pilot clinical trial. Laser speckle was evaluated successfully in a Teflon phantom mimicking burns and more recently in porcine skin burns. A laser burn debridement system was constructed and tested on porcine skin burns. Burns were tangentially excised bloodlessly and equivalent percent engraftment rates and Vancouver scar scores were obtained from laser debrided sites and sharply excised controls. Progress has been made in developing a feedback control mechanism for controlling the laser debridement system. Identifying the transition zone between burn eschar and underlying healthy tissue appears possible using reflectance spectroscopy. Finally, a more elegant laser debridement burn diagnostic robotic system has been designed via a cooperative research agreement with Sandia National laboratories.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 1998
- Accession Number
- ADA359845
Entities
People
- John A. Parrish
Organizations
- Massachusetts General Hospital