Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects (NSERC partnered)

We want to make possible a new avenue of laser surgery: 'burst mode' ultrashort-pulse laser pulses delivered by next- generation fiber-optic tools -- surgery with only a small incision, very fine control of a laser scalpel, and complete control of good and bad heating. This would be an ideal new tool in the trend of minimally invasive surgery using natural openings in the body (natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery ('NOTES')). Lasers already offer surgical tools that cauterize, cut or scrape, but modern applications in engineering and in manufacturing are far wider and more sophisticated than has yet appeared in medicine. Ultrafast laser pulses already have a huge medical and commercial impact, e.g., replacing specialized scalpels that open the cornea in LASIK vision-correction surgery. However, not all lasers are the same, and they have to be adapted specifically for the properties of the tissue needing surgery: bone, cornea, cartilage, etc. We want to draw from the pool of brand-new possibilities, to develop for joint surgery a refined kind of very short pulse laser, which delivers 'machine-gun bursts' of pulses, delivered over a new class of optical-fibers, to give a new kind of subtle control: more gentle cutting, faster cutting, better control of depth of cutting, more deliberate management of pain and a wider range of management of the good and bad impact on tissue adjacent to the surgical site, to reduce unnecessary damage while at the same time improving healing.