Gingiva laser welding: preliminary study on an ex vivo porcine model.

OBJECTIVE: The use of lasers to fuse different tissues has been studied for 50 years. As none of these experiments concerned the oral soft tissues, our objective was to assess the feasibility of laser gingiva welding. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Porcine full-thickness gingival flaps served to prepare calibrated samples in the middle of which a 2 cm long incision was closed, either by conventional suture or by laser tissue welding (LTW). To determine the irradiation conditions yielding the best tensile strength, 13 output power values, from 0.5 to 5 W, delivered either at 10 Hz or in continuous wave mode, were tested on six indocyanine green (ICG) concentrations, from 8% to 13% (588 samples). Then, some samples served to compare the tensile strength between the laser welded and the sutured gingiva; the other samples were histologically processed in order to evaluate the thermal damage extent. The temperature rise during the LTW was measured by thermocouples. Another group of 12 samples was used to measure the temperature elevation by thermal camera. RESULTS: In the laser welding groups, the best tensile strength (p<0.05) was yielded by the 9% ICG saline solution (117 mM) at 4.5 W, 10 Hz, and a fluence of 31.3 kJ/cm(2). The apposition strength revealed no statistically significant difference (p<0.05) between the sutured and the laser welded gingiva at 4.5 W, 10 Hz, and 9% ICG solution. The mean temperature was 74±5.4°C at the upper surface and 42±8.9°C at the lower surface. The damaged zone averaged 333 µm at the upper surface. CONCLUSIONS: The 808 nm diode laser associated with ICG can achieve oral mucosa LTW, which is conceivable as a promising technique of gingival repair.

High resolution imaging with differential infrared absorption micro-spectroscopy.

Although confocal infrared (IR) absorption micro-spectroscopy is well established for far-field chemical imaging, its scope remains restricted since diffraction limits the spatial resolution to values a little above half the radiation wavelength. Yet, the successful implementations of below-the-diffraction limit far-field fluorescence microscopies using saturated irradiation patterns for example for stimulated-emission depletion and saturated structured-illumination suggest the possibility of using a similar optical patterning strategy for infrared absorption mapping at high resolution. Simulations are used to show that the simple mapping of the difference in transmitted/reflected IR energy between a saturated vortex-shaped beam and a Gaussian reference with a confocal microscope affords the generation of high-resolution vibrational absorption images. On the basis of experimentally relevant parameters, the simulations of the differential absorption scheme reveal a spatial resolution better than a tenth of the wavelength for incident energies about a decade above the saturation threshold. The saturated structured illumination concepts are thus expected to be compatible with the establishment of point-like point-spread functions for measuring the absorbance of samples with a scanning confocal microscope recording the differential transmission/reflection.

A framework for far-field infrared absorption microscopy beyond the diffraction limit.

A framework is proposed for infrared (IR) absorption microscopy in the far-field with a spatial resolution below the diffraction limit. The sub-diffraction resolution is achieved by pumping a transient contrast in the population of a selected vibrational mode with IR pulses that exhibit alternating central minima and maxima, and by probing the corresponding absorbance at the same wavelength with adequately delayed Gaussian pulses. Simulations have been carried out on the basis of empirical parameters emulating patterned thin films of octadecyltrichlorosilane and a resolution of 250 nm was found when probing the CH2 stretches at 3.5 µm with pump energies less than ten times the vibrational saturation threshold.