Compact laser scalpel and method for preferential ablation of tumor tissue
AssigneeUniversity of Iowa Research Foundation
InventorFatima Toor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An apparatus and method of treatment of an animal using the apparatus are disclosed. The apparatus includes a scalpel, a laser included in the scalpel, and a visible light source included in the scalpel. The visible light source provides a visible targeting beam. The method of treatment includes activating a visible targeting beam in a laser scalpel. The visible targeting beam has an illumination intensity. The method further includes illuminating a tumor that includes cancerous cells and non-cancerous cells with the visible targeting beam, activating an invisible mid-infrared laser included in the scalpel to produce a laser spot at the tumor, and ablating the cancerous cells while leaving the non-cancerous cells substantially undamaged.
Claims4
A method of treatment of an animal comprising:
- activating a visible targeting beam in a laser scalpel, the visible targeting beam having an illumination intensity, the laser scalpel having a compact form factor and includes a milli-watt power mid-infrared quantum cascade laser;
- illuminating a tumor that includes undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma cancer cells and non-cancerous cells with the visible targeting beam;
- activating the invisible milli-watt power mid-infrared laser scalpel to produce a laser spot at the tumor;
- operating the invisible milli-watt power mid-infrared quantum cascade laser at a temperature of about 15° C.;
- and
- ablating the undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma cancer cells while leaving the non-cancerous cells substantially undamaged.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.