Abstract
We report pronounced delayed tissue death in photothermal surgery performed with highly concentrated sunlight on the livers of healthy live rats. Pathology reveals that lesion volumes increase by up to a factor of 5 within approximately 24 h after surgery, and then stabilize. Islands of viable cells can persist within damaged tissue, in the immediate vicinity of blood vessels, but also necrose within about 48 h. Delayed cell death is an unambiguously non-thermal process, apparently linked solely to biochemical messengers. The dramatic enlargement of the affected region appears to have been essentially overlooked in laser surgery studies. The ramifications include (a) proper gauging of the required scale of tissue damage during surgery, toward averting excessive destruction of untargeted surrounding tissue; and (b) avoiding false positives from the substantial amount of tissue that appears viable immediately after surgery but will necrose within 24 h. The comparable performance of high-flux solar and concentrated laser light for hyperthermic treatments permits effective surgery and the probing of tissue death dynamics with a solar energy system that is simpler and markedly less expensive than surgical lasers.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 44 |
| Pages (from-to) | 270-277 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Progress in Biomedical Optics and Imaging - Proceedings of SPIE |
| Volume | 5695 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 16 Aug 2005 |
| Event | Optical Interactions with Tissue and Cells XVI - San Jose, CA, United States Duration: 24 Jan 2005 → 26 Jan 2005 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
- Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
- Biomaterials
- Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging
