Miniature Sapphire Tip With a Reflecting Part for Ring Illumination of Tissues.

Abstract

Laser treatment of natural canals is typical for phlebology, gynecology and urology. This method has several problems, including the choice of light dosimetry and instrumentation. It is important to provide a reliable and uniform energy distribution on the canal walls. Aimed at this, a sapphire tip is proposed in this work. Manufactured by the crystal growth technique, this tip has miniature dimensions and an axial cavity, which serves as a reflecting element. It can be combined with standard optical fibers providing contact coagulation. In this work, the performance of this instrument was studied numerically and experimentally, using ex vivo liver samples. The results reveal an ability of the tip to form local coagulation without a sharp increase in temperature on the instrument surface. Thus, the sapphire tip demonstrates significant prospects for interstitial laser treatment, combining simple design, high reliability, reproducibility of the light distribution, and a smoothed thermal profile.