HIGH ENERGY DIODE ARRAY FOR BURN DIAGNOSIS

A major difficulty in properly treating burn patients is the inability to reliably differentiate full dermal thickness burns, which should be excised and grafted, from partial thickness burns, which will heal within a few weeks without excision. Recently, the use of an intravenously injected florescent dye illuminated with 800 nm infrared radiation has been shown in animal experiments to provide a clear differentiation between full and partial thickness burns. The flashlamp source which produces the infrared illumination, however, has limited discrimination ability and little practical utility in clinical applications because of its lack of spectral purity, spatial uniformity, and spectral intensity. Preliminary experiments performed using a Star Medical Technologies (SMT) high energy diode array laser (5 millijoules in 5 milliseconds) indicate that a diode array laser illuminator can remedy these major dificiencies. Design studies indicate that a compact, hand-held diagnostic unit can be built and inexpensively produced. SMT proposed to perform the experiments necessary to validate this diagnostic approach and gather the critical design data necessary for the construction of a clinical prototype.