Computer-assisted surgical techniques: can they really improve laser surgery?

摘要

As part of our Computer-Assisted Surgical Techniques (CAST) program, we use computers to guide surgical lasers, create minimal incision widths, regulate the rate of tissue ablation, monitor the types of tissue being ablated with photo-acoustic feedback, and track and compensate for patient motions due to respiration and heart beat. The union of the computer, robotics and lasers can assist the surgeon and permit several new applications. Although these advances in laser surgery appear to have obvious benefits, it is important to evaluate and quantify the clinical advantages. We have compared the CAST system to manually controlled laser surgery and studied the wound healing after laser incision. We have found definite advantages to the CAST system. However, the computer, alone, cannot compensate for the thermal damage lateral to the incision site. The results suggest the need for motion tracking and compensation to be a part of the CAST system.