One of the most beneficial technological advances in dentistry and oral surgery was developed in the early 90’s and is still a key tool in cosmetic dentistry to this day, this piece of dental equipment is known as a dental laser and was specifically designed to make dental work less painful for you the patient as well as making performing complicated dental surgery much easier for the dentist.
The use of the dental laser was first approved in North America during the early 90’s for procedures on the gums by the Food and Drug Administration, the dental lasers use on hard tissues like teeth and the bones of the mandible was not given approval until 1996. Up until the invention of the dental laser and its approval to be used in the dental field the tool of choice used by dentists was the dental drill, though the dental drill is still widely used due to the lower cost of equipment a lot of dentists are now opting to switch over to the dental laser as the price of the tool comes down.
Today there are about several different variants of dental laser in use, the most common of these lasers would be the diode laser and carbon dioxide laser. The reason for having these different variations of dental laser is because different types of lasers work on separate wavelengths making them better suited for separate applications. Diode lasers use a wavelength in the 810 – 900 nanometer range and are well absorbed by red colored tissues such as the gums.
Dental lasers offer great benefits to the dental field as the use of a dental laser can decrease morbidity after surgery as well as reduce the need to have costly anesthetics used during procedures. Due to the cauterization of tissues there is very little bleeding following soft tissue procedures and the risks of the alternative electrosurgery procedures is avoided. For these reason and more most dental surgeons are opting to use dental lasers over the alternative equipment and both patient and dental hygienist alike are benefitting from this great technological advance in dental surgery.
A new special approach to laser surgery is the soft tissue laser which through interaction of laser light with soft tissue allows for easier and cleaner dental surgery procedures. The soft tissue laser has very unique benefits over the traditional methods and since its invention it has drastically changed many surgical fields. Dental surgeons are not the only professional surgeons that use the soft tissue laser; the technology is widely used across many medical professions and has a variety of applications to make complicated surgery much cleanlier and safer for the Doctors using them and the patients they are working on.
A soft tissue laser works by using a highly focused laser beam to vaporize the soft tissue that contains high water content. These laser beams are able to create very small incisions when they are focused on the tissue, the focal spot of the laser can be as small as 0.1 mm of course the mostly widely used setting is 0.4 mm. One of the most amazing abilities of the soft tissue laser is its ability to cauterize small blood vessels and lymphatic’s and decrease post operative swellings and the soft tissue laser has the added effect of natural sterilization as it evaporates bacteria, viruses and fungi, this leads to a large decrease in local infections after surgery.
There are many bonuses to the patient gained by using soft tissue lasers, not only does the laser cauterize the incisions and vaporize bacteria and infection; it also decreases post operative pain because it seals the nerve endings. The types of lasers used is differentiated by the particular type of laser surgery and a variety of lasers are used depending on whether the dental surgeon is working on soft tissue like the gums or hard tissue like the teeth and jaw.
The dominant soft tissue laser has been and remains to be the carbon dioxide or CO2 laser due to its wavelength and almost perfect precision. The CO2 lasers wavelength is about 10,600 nanometers and is highly absorbed by in vivo soft tissues which contain water. The use of CO2 lasers has grown in the past few years as modern technology makes these lasers far more affordable than their counterpart solid state lasers which do use a wavelength highly absorbed by water in the range of 3,000 nanometers.
The wavelength of surgical lasers is not the only thing that differentiates them from each other, the light delivery system is one of the main differences between lasers, the laser delivery system can be flexible or articulated arm. There are also a number of other factors that contribute to a lasers surgical use.
The soft tissue laser has revolutionized a variety of surgeries making painful and uncomfortable post operative healing much more bearable for the patients and the soft tissue laser is now used in a number of applications such as neurosurgery, general surgery and of courses dental surgeries.
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