Comparison of Thermal and Non-Thermal Ablation of Tumor Using Focused Short Pulse Laser Beam

Abstract

For last few decades laser-induced tumor ablation has attracted significant attention of researchers. The accessibility of tumors located deep inside the body organ using fiber-optic probe without any major surgical resection has made this method an alternative for conventional surgical resection. Various minimally invasive techniques have been developed are used to ablate the tumor successfully with minimum collateral damages [1, 2]. All these techniques utilize the photo-thermal mechanism where conversion of laser energy (mainly from CW or long pulsed laser source) to heat energy leads to necrosis of the tissue through photocoagulation. Since, the necrosis of tumor is achieved by volumetric heating of the whole tumor there remains a significant chance of heat spreading out of the tumor volume damaging surrounding healthy tissue. Therefore, precise control of treatment parameters (laser pulse width, laser power, and irradiation time) is required to restrict the heat spread to the healthy tissue surrounding the tumor.