LASER-TISSUE WELDING - A COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW OF CURRENT AND FUTURE CLINICAL-APPLICATIONS

Laser techniques for joining tissue, in combination with other surgica l technologies, will be a hallmark of surgery in the next century. At present, there are many clinical applications of tissue welding and so ldering which are beginning to achieve wide spread acceptance. These e xciting clinical developments are the result of many advances which ha ve been made in the past few years in our understanding of the mechani sm of laser tissue welding. Also contributing to this progress are man y important technical refinements such as tissue solders and feedback control of the laser device. In this article, we describe in depth the history and development of laser tissue welding including key theoret ical concepts as well as crucial experiments which have added to our i nsight into this phenomenon. We also review the evolving concepts of i ts clinical application and indicate clinical applications which are l ikely to become more important in the future. (C) 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc .