Protective Coatings for Laser Surgery Delivery Systems

Fiber Optics are extensively used in laser surgery for delivering high power laser light. When fibecontact or near contact cutting of tissue they undergo extensive damage. This fiber tip degradationtransmission and causes the light to scatter from the fiber tip at much larger angles than an undamafibers damage during a surgical procedure they must be removed and either replaced or recleaved. Thiexpensive. Although this damage is usually referred to as 'spalling', due to its superficial resemblfracture, it is actually a more complicated phenomena. From a thorough examination of the degradatiohave developed a procedure for protecting the distal ends of the fiber optics used in laser surgery.designed to frustrate all of the possible damage mechanisms which are responsible for the destructiotips. This should greatly extend the useful life of the inexpensive silica fibers currently used obvexotic fibers or large and expensive sapphire tips.