Imaging of excimer laser vascular tissue ablation by ultrafast photography

摘要

Abstract: Ablation and tissue removal of normal and atherosclerotic arterial tissue by UV excimer-laser radiation were probed by taking photographs with a dye laser as a flash light-source. The ablating pulses were transmitted through a fused silica fiber into a cuvette with the samples exposed to saline solution. The delay time of the probing dye-laser pulse with respect to the ablating excimer-laser pulse was varied in the nanosecond range up to several hundred microseconds. The ablation process and the resulting plume above the tissue surface were recorded with a CCD camera attached to a PC-based image processing system. All samples under investigation were fresh human cadaver aortic and femoral artery specimens which had been shock-frozen for less than 48 hours. The arterial segments showed different types of lipid-rich and calcified plaques. Big cavitation bubbles and small tissue particles emerging from the irradiated area have been recorded.!4