Arterial laser ‘welding’

Press, 23 November 1987, Page 18

Arterial laser ‘welding’

NZPA-Reuter Anaheim A surgeon has announced what he believed were the first reported cases of successful laser “welding" of arteries in humans in a technique that appears to be superior to suturing.

“As far as I know, we were the first to weld together a human artery with a laser,” said Dr John Crew, director of cardiovascular surgical research at the San Francisco Heart Institute at Seton Medical Centre.

“We hope that eventually this' technique will help surgeons repair blood vessels in which sutures have proven to be inadequate,” Dr Crew said in his report to the American Heart Association’s Sixtieth Scientific Sessions.

"Thus laser welding may help surgeons save hearts, legs and other parts of the body that they could not save before.”

Dr Crew, a vascular surgeon, and his col-

leagues have welded arteries in more than 15 patients since March, 1987, he said.

Most previous attempts at laser welding of blood vessels had been done on animals and involved high-power, high-tempera-ture lasers that dry out the tissues being joined together, Dr Crew said.

Such weldings have had a significant failure rate in animal experiments and produce almost as much scar tissue as suturing techniques.