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Biomedical subjects

H A Green

Publications and source records attributed to H A Green.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

Middermal wound healing. A comparison between dermatomal excision and pulsed carbon dioxide laser ablation.

BACKGROUND: Continuous-wave carbon dioxide lasers are not widely used for the surgical removal of most skin lesions because it is difficult to control laser ablation and the extensive laser-induced thermal damage slows healing. Pulsed lasers provide means to reduce thermal damage produced during laser ablation and permit precise control of tissue removed during ablation. Using a swine model, we compared on a gross and microscopic level the healing of middermal wounds of similar depth and area created by a dermatome and a focused pulsed CO2 laser. RESULTS: Pulsed CO2 laser ablation removed skin precisely and bloodlessly with 85 +/- 15 microns (mean +/- SD) of residual thermal damage covering the surface of the wound. Compared with the dermatome, tissue reepithelialization was delayed in the laser wounds at day 3. By day 7, epithelial coverage of the laser-created wounds was not significantly different from the dermatome-created wounds. No significant difference in the appearance of the two wounds was noted at 42 days. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that the focused pulsed CO2 laser is capable of precisely and bloodlessly ablating skin with conservation of residual subjacent adnexal elements, minimal early interference with epibolic epithelial outgrowth, and no pathologic effects on the wound healing process. Pulsed CO2 lasers may be a valuable instrument for the conservative ablation of skin and skin lesions.

Animals

Burn depth estimation using indocyanine green fluorescence.

Expedient primary excision of deep dermal and full-thickness burn wounds with subsequent skin grafting is the standard of care in most burn institutions, but differentiating full-thickness from partial-thickness burns is often difficult. Because accurate early assessment of burn depth may improve care, a variety of technical methods have attempted to measure burn depth but these methods have had limited success. We describe a new technique to determine burn depth that uses infrared (840- to 850-nm) fluorescence emission from intravenously administered indocyanine green following excitation with infrared (780 nm) and UV light (369 nm). Full-thickness and partial-thickness burns in hairless rat skin were distinguished based on the infrared-induced and UV-induced fluorescence intensity ratios relative to normal, unburned skin immediately after the burn and on post-burn days 1 through 3 and 7. Dual-wavelength excitation of indocyanine green infrared fluorescence can delineate full-thickness from partial-thickness burns at an early date, allowing prognosis, surgical planning, and early primary excision and grafting.

Animals

DNA damage induced by 193-nm radiation in mammalian cells.

The contribution of DNA damage to the effects of 193-nm excimer laser radiation on mammalian cells in culture was studied in order to evaluate the mutagenic potential of this UV wavelength in vivo. Two approaches were taken: measurement of pyrimidine dimer-specific endonuclease-sensitive sites/megabase and comparison of the 193-nm radiation-induced cytotoxicity in normal versus DNA repair-deficient cells. The formation of pyrimidine dimer-specific endonuclease-sensitive sites/megabase was inversely related to the thickness of the cytoplasm overlying the nuclei of normal human fibroblasts (NHF) and Chinese hamster ovary cells. The results of these measurements and a calculation of the absorption coefficient of cytoplasm indicate that each 1 micron of cytoplasm attenuates the incident radiation by greater than 90% and, therefore, the nuclear DNA in tissue will be highly protected from 193-nm radiation by overlying cytoplasm. The reduction in colony-forming ability induced by 254-nm, 193-nm, and X-ray radiation was measured in NHF, xeroderma pigmentosum (group A) cells, and ataxia telangiectasia cells. Xeroderma pigmentosum (group A) cells were 16.5 times more sensitive to 254-nm radiation but only 3.5 times more sensitive to 193-nm radiation than NHF cells, indicating that cyclobutylpyrimidine dimers were not the major lethal lesion formed at 193 nm. AT cells were 3.4 times more sensitive to X-rays than NHF cells, but these cell types were almost equally sensitive to 193-nm radiation, indicating that 193 nm did not induce the same type of lethal lesions as X-rays.

Animals

Pulsed carbon dioxide laser ablation of burned skin: in vitro and in vivo analysis.

Pulsed lasers produce efficient and precise tissue ablation with limited residual thermal damage. In this study, the efficiency of pulsed CO2 laser ablation of burned and normal swine skin was studied in vitro with a mass loss technique. The heats of ablation for normal and burned skin were 2,706 and 2,416 J/cm3 of tissue ablated, respectively. The mean threshold radiant exposures for ablating normal skin and eschar were 2.6 J/cm2 and 3.0 J/cm2, respectively. Radiant exposures greater than 19 J/cm2 produced a plasma, which decreased the efficiency of laser ablation. Thus the radiant exposures for efficient ablation range from 4 to 19 J/cm2, and within this radiant exposure range 20-40 microns of tissue are ablated per pulse. We also examined, on a gross and histopathologic basis, in vivo burn eschar excision with a pulsed CO2 laser. The laser allowed bloodless excisions of full thickness burns on the backs of male hairless rats. The zone of thermal damage was approximately 85 microns over the subjacent fascia. The pulsed CO2 laser can ablate burn eschar efficiently, precisely, and bloodlessly and may prove valuable for the excision of burned and necrotic tissue.

Animals