Lasers

Lasers have many uses in surgery in general, and the field of plastic surgery. Lasers use light energy to cut, coagulate and vaporise tissue. Common uses in plastic surgery include: treatment of vascular lesions (e.g. port wine stains), benign pigmented lesions (e.g. non-cancerous moles), and some tattoos. Laser is an acronym and stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.

A laser beam is simply a stream of photons, which has 3 important properties:

i. the light is monochromatic (a single colour)

ii. the photons travel only in one direction (collimation)

iii. the ability to focus precisely (coherence).