Dynamic analysis of laser ablation of biological tissue using real-time optical coherence tomography

During laser ablation of a diseased area, the surrounding tissues and organs suffer serious damage. In order to optimize laser ablation of biological tissues, it is necessary to observe the laser ablation in situ. The real-time imaging of tissue laser ablation is realized in the fusion system of the YAG ablation laser and optical coherence tomography (OCT). A swept-source OCT (SS-OCT) is combined with a YAG laser ablation system. In this paper, we demonstrate real-time OCT imaging of tissue laser ablation. The fiber-optic swept-source OCT (SS-OCT) with 25 frames s(-1) is used for the in situ observation where tissue laser ablation is made continuously by 10 Hz YAG laser pulses. Dynamic analysis for laser ablation, therefore, is made, taking thermal accumulation effect into account.