Effect of steroids or tissue preceding on edema and tissue thermal coagulation after CO2 laser impact

✍ Scribed by LisaMarie Sheppard; Jay Werkhaven; Samuel Mickelson; John D. Crissman; Edward Peterson; Gordon Jacobsen

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1992
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 1016 KB
• Volume: 12
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0196-8092
• DOI: 10.1002/lsm.1900120205

✦ Synopsis

The carbon dioxide laser is frequently used in laryngeal microsurgery. Some surgeons have empirically used preoperative steroids or precooling with ice prior to laser impact to limit the resultant tissue thermal coagulation and/or edema. An animal model was designed to quantitatively test these effects. Depillated areas of rat skin were exposed to a CO, beam of 1 mm diameter at 15 W for 0.1 sec after either administration of Decadron (0.25 mgikg) immediately prior to impact or precooling more than 10°C below basal body temperature. Measurement of edema was quantitated as extravasation of Evan's blue dye that had been injected intravenously. Tissue thermal coagulation was measured on hematoxylin and eosin stained histologic sections. In comparison to controls, statistically significant reduction in edema was seen only at the 24 hour time period after laser exposure for the steroid group (P < .002) but not for the precooling group. Tissue thermal coagulation was significantly smaller for both the steroid and the ice group (P < .006 and P < .001, respectively) when compared to controls.