Terry D. Myers

The use of a laser for debridement of incipient caries

The mode-locked YAG laser effectively removes debris and/or stains from incipient carious lesions in pits and fissures. Prior investigations inferred that the energy levels used in this study would not cause pulpal injury or remove sound intact enamel. This would be a desirable step in sealant therapy and could provide an improved method of debridement in treating precarious lesions.

Intraocular lens design for the neodymium:YAG laser.

Phacoemulsification was performed on both lenses of 24 rabbits. One eye received a lens implant with a convex-plano optic; the fellow eye received an implant with a convex-concave optic which separated the posterior surface of the implant from the posterior capsule by 0.2 mm, 0.3 mm, or 0.4 mm. A YAG laser capsulotomy was performed on all eyes immediately following surgery and an assessment of both microscopic and macroscopic YAG-induced lens damage was made. The meniscus optics with their capsule-implant separation showed significantly less YAG-induced damage than their convex-plano counterparts without this separation. Increasing the amount of capsule-implant separation beyond 0.2 mm did not enhance the degree of protection from YAG-induced damage.