New applications for medical photonics are evolving almost daily. New applications include everything from cutting-edge cancer research, brain-mapping, and cosmetic treatments, to improving the precision and hygiene levels of the manufacture of sterile medical equipment.

Laser Therapies:
Welding tissue with lasers offers great promise to the medical community. This breakthrough technique rapidly seals incisions in arterial, skin and ocular tissue using near infrared (NIR) lasers. Challenges with conventional sutures are resolved due to the immediate seal formed by the laser. This facilitates wound healing, reduces surgical time, virtually eliminates foreign bodies from entering at the surgical point and creates a watertight seal.

Exploiting the Raman Effect of light may eliminate the need for invasive blood-glucose monitoring. The novel excitation and difference-Raman processes allow for the detection of glucose and other biological analytes at low levels without the need for taking blood samples.

In October 2006, Digital Angel announced it has been granted a U.S. patent for its syringe-implantable glucose-sensing RFID microchip. The implantable bio-sensor chip has a passive transponder, glucose sensor and integrated circuitry that allow anyone implanted with a microchip to painlessly scan it to determine their level of glucose concentration. The RFID microchip quickly and accurately transmits the glucose data back to a wireless scanner that displays the glucose level. The RFID microchip eliminates the need for conventional monitoring, which is invasive, painful and often inaccurate.

Laser eye surgery has opened up an entirely new world to both near- and far-sighted patients around the world. Current procedures present risks due to the very nature of the surgery. Cutting a flap in the eye's protective surface, the cornea, opens the eye to the possibility of scarring and infection. A new technique, developed by a team at the Fraunhofer Institute of Biomedical Engineering, uses femtosecond pulse lasers. This procedure focuses the laser through the outer tissue directly onto the target area, reducing surgical time, healing time and the effects of the radiation that overshoot the target. This process can be extended to other forms of microsurgery, gene splicing or drug delivery. The team has succeeded in making the world's smallest artificial incision in living tissue.

Production of medical instruments using lasers overcomes challenges that had been compensated for in the past. Hygiene of instruments is greatly elevated due to the non-contact nature of the process and eliminates the need for consumables (glue or solder). Metal burrs, common after most procedures on metal, are also virtually eliminated. The high-precision techniques achieved with lasers can be extrapolated to the manufacture of fine wires and foils especially in medical grade materials, such as titanium, which are difficult to join using conventional methods.

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