News — Holmium Fiber
From Abe to MoXy™ and Beyond Part 5: More Fibers of the 1990s
2000nm 2100nm 532nm BPH duet fiber Duotome GreenLight Holmium Fiber Holmium Laser holmium laser fiber KTP Laser Laser laser fiber Laser Lithotripsy LDD85 LDDduet LDDquartet LDDtrio MaxLight MaxLight 90 MoXy Prostate Surgery QuadraLase quanta laser Quartet fiber SideLite Thulium thulium laser thulium laser fiber Trimedyne trio fiber
John Brekke’s fiber design from 1994 is one of the few lateral fiber designs of the era that remains on the market today, marketed as Scatterfree™ by Laser Peripherals. As can be seen in figures 10 and 11 (below the next paragraph) taken from the first patent, the concept is simple and it does basically work. In contrast to Pon, however, Brekke failed to properly identify the true sources of the unwanted emissions from unfused fibers. Quoting the patent, in reference to figures 5 and 6 immediately below, “The reflected light 27 and light 29 are unwanted and potentially unsafe...
From Abe to MoXy™ and Beyond -- Part 4: The 1990s Boom
2000nm 2100nm 532nm BPH duet fiber Duotome GreenLight Holmium Fiber Holmium Laser holmium laser fiber KTP Laser laser fiber LDD85 LDDduet LDDquartet LDDtrio Lumenis MaxLight MaxLight 90 MoXy optical fiber QuadraLase Quartet fiber Slimline Thulium thulium laser thulium laser fiber Trimedyne trio fiber
The 1990s saw a boom in laser TURP (Transurethral Resection of the Prostate) using mostly Nd:YAG lasers. Nd:YAGs showed promise for lowering the classical side effects of standard TURP, where a hot wire loop is used to melt/carve away strips of hyperplastic tissue; their CW (continuous wave) output produced smoother surfaces than holmium lasers do, they did not strongly interact with the sterile irrigation fluid and were less damaging to fibers than holmium lasers. Laserscope’s ADD-Stat™ fiber -- the progenitor to the Model 2090 used in the GreenLight™ revolution of 2000 -- was a fairly popular device that was used...
From Abe to MoXy™ and Beyond; Part 3 -- Moses' Math Works
2000nm 2100nm BPH Duotome GreenLight Holmium Fiber Holmium Laser holmium laser fiber laser fiber MoXy OmniPulse Photoselective Photoselectivity Prostate Surgery SideLite thulium laser thulium laser fiber
Part 3 is a bit of a departure from my planned sequence for this series. A colleague has graciously permitted me to share a slow motion video that he produced of a generic side fire fiber delivering a single pulse of holmium energy into a beaker of water. Herein I hope to demonstrate that surgical fiber performance can be modeled/predicted, and quite accurately, and that there isn't anything mysterious or magical involved. Sure, some aspects of laser surgery are extremely complex, like laser-tissue interactions, but the tools that science provides do allow us to design devices intelligently. That's my company's motto, after all:...
From Abe to MoXy™ and Beyond; Part 2 -- Abe's Side Fire Solution(s)
BPH Duotome GreenLight high power fiber optics Holmium Fiber Holmium Laser holmium laser fiber laser fiber MoXy OmniPulse Photoselective Photoselectivity SideLite thulium laser thulium laser fiber
Part 1 of this series was mostly a review of Snell's law and Fresnel reflections as they explain the weird output of bevel polished fibers. Here we see some more Snell and Fresnel issues and the earliest Band-Aid® treatments designed to mitigate these issues. Part 2: Abe's Solution(s) Before we get into what Abe saw as solutions to the issues outlined, we should probably address the problem that I alluded to in Part 1: the disappointing results of polishing a fiber at the calculated TIR angle for lateral redirection of the output. In so doing, you’ll more fully understand why...
Side Fire Fiber Technology – From Abe to MoXy™ and Beyond: Part 1 (Basics)
Duotome Holmium Fiber Holmium Laser holmium laser fiber KTP Laser Prostate Surgery SideLite thulium laser thulium laser fiber Trimedyne
Part 1: Fiber Optics Fundamentals (a prerequisite to understanding side fire fibers) I’ve been told a half dozen tales that purport to describe the origin of fiber optics and likely as many claiming to describe the first side fire fiber, but there is little or no evidence for any stories I have heard over my 30+ years in the field…except the tale of “the Hitachi patent”. Anyone working in side fire fiber design has likely heard of this infamous patent, but I'd venture few have read it. The Hitachi fiber is the earliest patented side fire fiber that I have...