Wound healing after laser surgery: an experimental study.

Healing after carbon dioxide laser incisions has been assessed in three animal experiments. Nine incisions in pig skin were found to be significantly weaker after 7 days than similar incisions made with a scalpel, but stronger than those made with a cutting diathermy. Laser excision of skin discs in pigs provided a satisfactory base to take split-skin grafts, but graft take around the edges was less complete than after scalpel excisions. Division and anasto mosis of the colon of 75 rats showed that the laser produced anastomoses that were as strong after 7 days as those produced by scalpel or diathermy division, but the laser did not produce the narrowing of the lumen that occurred with diathermy. It is concluded that if epithelial surfaces are particularly thick and slow to cut with the laser than thermal damage will impair healing, but that in general epithelial surfaces need not be avoided in laser surgery.