Abstract
Laser lithotripsy is a medical procedure for fragmentation of urinary stones with a fiber guided laser pulse of several hundred microseconds long. Using high-speed photography, we present an in-vitro study of bubble dynamics and stone motion induced by Ho:YAG laser lithotripsy. The experiments reveal that detectable stone motion starts only after the bubble collapse, which we relate with the collapse-induced liquid flow. Additionally, we model the bubble formation and dynamics using a set of 2D Rayleigh-Plesset equations with the measured laser pulse profile as an input. The aim is to reduce stone motion through modification of the temporal laser pulse profile, which affects the collapse scenario and consequently the remnant liquid motion.
Highlights
As a minimally invasive method of fragmenting urinary stones, intracorporeal laser lithotripsy has been in use for over two decades [3]
Ho:YAG laser lithotripsy, the fundamental mechanism of transfer of laser energy to the stone is through formation of a vapor bubble that bridges the fiber optic with the urinary stone
Mathematical modeling of the bubble shape Similar to the modeling of elongated cavities for the classical water entry problem [1], we model the shape of the elongated bubble in laser lithotripsy by discrete layers, where each layer is governed by a two dimensional Rayleigh-Plesset equation
Summary
As a minimally invasive method of fragmenting urinary stones, intracorporeal laser lithotripsy has been in use for over two decades [3]. In this procedure, an endoscope is inserted into the urethra to locate calculi and a fiber optic is inserted through the working channel of the scope. A pulsed laser is coupled into the fiber to irradiate the stone, causing the stone to disintegrate into smaller fragments which are later on washed out of the urinary tract. In. Ho:YAG laser lithotripsy, the fundamental mechanism of transfer of laser energy to the stone is through formation of a vapor bubble that bridges the fiber optic with the urinary stone. The calculus absorbs the laser energy and is fragmented due to a photothermal mechanism [6]
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