TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/091889/09188900.051

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 3KB | 54 lines

TECHNOLOGY, Page 97

Is There a Laser in the House?

Doctors are using high-tech beams to treat everyday complaints


    Blasting tumors. Zapping cataracts. Slicing through soft tissue
with a searing light. Lasers have been used in medicine almost
since they were invented 30 years ago. But the big, bulky devices
of the '60s and '70s proved too destructive for most procedures,
and early predictions that the laser would replace the scalpel did
not come true. Now, thanks to a new generation of short-pulsed,
high-peak-powered, computer-controlled lasers, the healing beam is
taking a more prominent place in the panoply of medical tools. In
hospitals and clinics, lasers are being increasingly used for such
common procedures as treating hemorrhoids and removing tattoos.

    Dentists have long known that laser beams could vaporize
cavities without hurting healthy enamel. But early lasers generated
too much heat on nearby gum tissue, and the technique was never
developed. Then Dr. Terry Myers, a Michigan dentist, began
experimenting with a modern ophthalmologist's laser. He became
convinced that the neodymium-YAG (yttrium aluminum garnet) laser,
operated at up to 30 pulses a second to avoid heat buildup, rather
than in a continuous beam, would do a better job on surface
cavities than mechanical drills do. Myers' dental laser is being
sold in Canada and, if it gets Government approval, could reach the
U.S. market early next year.

    Lasers are also being focused on eye problems other than
cataracts -- including ordinary nearsightedness and farsightedness
-- through a technique known as eye sculpturing. A narrow circle
of laser light directed by a computer plays across the surface of
the eye, vaporizing microscopic layers of the cornea to flatten or
steepen its curvature. The novel procedure, undergoing its first
clinical trials, is made possible by an unusual kind of laser
called the excimer, originally developed for etching silicon chips.
Instead of burning away cells as ordinary lasers do, the excimer,
relying on the high quantum energy of its ultraviolet light,
destroys molecular bonds in the cell. Result: a smooth, clean cut
that keeps scarring to a minimum.

    New lasers are shaving days off the recovery period needed for
traditional operations. The wavelength of a pulsed dye laser, for
example, can be adjusted so that the energy of the beam is absorbed
by gallstones and kidney stones and not by tissue walls. Gallstone
removals that once required ten days of hospitalization are now
being performed in a few hours on an outpatient basis.

    The American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery, however,
warns that the new lasers may also spawn new breeds of charlatans
and quacks. Some face-lift artists advertise that they use lasers
to smooth wrinkled skin. Irradiating facial tissue does cause the
face to swell and wrinkles to disappear. Unfortunately, the
wrinkles return when the swelling subsides, usually within a couple
of days. Says Dr. Ellet Drake, the society's secretary: "You can
get the same effect by slapping someone in the face."