Abstract
Lasers are playing an ever increasing role in the field of medical diagnostics and therapeutics. Considerable study has been done so far in the development of several theoretical models to predict the advancement of coagulation front in a tissue, when it is irradiated by a laser. However, there has been a keen interest to obtain some feedback by experimental means, to better understand the laser-tissue interaction for surgical purposes. Ultrasound imaging techniques are being extensively used for their ability to image in real time and their relatively low cost, compared to other imaging modalities. An attempt is made, in this study to track the advance of coagulation front, both qualitatively and quantitatively using ultrasound imaging and image processing techniques. An ND:YAG laser was irradiated on the beef myocardium and this was imaged using an intravascular ultrasound probe. The images recorded on the video cassette were then digitized. An image processing algorithm was developed in C language to track the coagulation front. Curve fitting procedures were applied to study the variation of global parameters. A graphical user interface was developed using interactive Motif ( X-Window programming toolkit) setting, to enhance user friendliness of the software. The entire software was developed on a single platform ( SunSparkstation ). The validity of the results were verified by comparing the processed data to the histological information, previously obtained.
Jagathesan, Shoban Srikrishna (1993). Tracking of the advance of the coagulation front in a laser irradiated tissue using ultrasound imaging. Master's thesis, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /ETD -TAMU -1993 -THESIS -J24.