New Application and Progress of Semiconductor Lasers in Medical Field

Semiconductor laser is widely used in the field of bio-medical research, clinical disease diagnosis and disease therapy, almost covering other kinds of

lasers applied range because of its own advantages, such as small body, light weight, long life span, high efficiency, etc. The applied range of semiconductor laser in the field of medical treatment will be expanded continuously, and the market share will be increased continuously. Semiconductor laser is predicted to be the mainstream of medical laser, and it has broad prospects for development.

Different wavelengths of semiconductor laser irradiation of biological tissue will produce different biological effects, corresponding to different laser treatment methods。

1. Vascular Surgery Department

Intravascular laser therapy (EVLT) is a new minimally invasive therapy with the advantages of small injury and high vascular sealing rate. It is widely used in the treatment of venous diseases such as varicose veins. Nowadays, the laser in clinical application is mainly 810nm, 940nm, 980nm semiconductor laser and 1064nm Nd: YAG laser, with oxygenated hemoglobin as laser target, induces heat to cause blood boiling to produce steam bubbles, indirectly damage the vascular wall and vascular occlusion, the cure rate is between 90% and 100%, its main disadvantage is that there are side effects such as pain and bruising after surgery!

2. Urology Department

Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is a common disease, affecting up to 85% of the elderly. Traditional transurethral prostatectomy (TURP) is effective in the treatment of prostatic hyperplasia, but the operation is difficult, bleeding, postoperative recovery is slow, complications are many.

With the development of laser technology, a variety of laser therapy has been applied to clinical, mainly divided into two types of tissue laser coagulation and laser tissue ablation。

3. Oncology Department

The clinical application of semiconductor laser in tumor treatment mainly includes laser cutting, coagulation and photodynamic therapy (PDT). High-power semiconductor laser has been widely used in laser cutting and coagulation surgery of tumors in China, but its non-specific heating in cutting and vaporizing tumors will cause damage to normal tissues and prolong the treatment time. At present, the light source commonly used in photodynamic therapy is mainly concentrated in the visible band of 600nm to 700nm, which has a shallow tissue penetration depth, limiting its therapeutic effect on deep tumors。

With the development of semiconductor laser technology, the wavelength range of laser is expanding, and its application in the medical field is expanding from the mature visible and near-infrared band to the mid-infrared band. At present, the development of semiconductor laser medical equipment is mainly concentrated in the United States, Europe, Japan and other developed countries, instrument research and development toward miniaturization, integration, multifunction, intelligent direction. China's semiconductor laser medical treatment is still in the initial stage, the overall level and the international developed countries have a big gap, domestic medical institutions mainly rely on imports.

However, China has become the world's third largest laser medical market, second only to the United States, Japan, with great potential for development. With the continuous development of semiconductor laser technology in China and the unremitting efforts of all disciplines, the development level of high-end semiconductor laser medical equipment in China will be improved, and the overall laser medical level in China will be on a new level.