Monitoring of tissue coagulation during thermotherapy using optoacoustic technique

In this paper we have applied the laser optoacoustic technique for real time noninvasive monitoring of thermal damage in tissues. Changes in tissue optical properties during coagulation were detected by measuring and analysing amplitude and temporal characteristics of optoacoustic signals. Coagulation of liver, myocardium and prostate was induced by interstitial continuous wave Nd: YAG laser irradiation of the samples or by conductive heating. Real time detection of thermally-induced changes in optical properties was performed with sensitive wide-band acoustic transducers. Combination of optoacoustic and diffuse reflectance technique was applied for determination of tissue optical properties: effective attenuation, total diffuse reflectance, reduced scattering coefficient and absorption coefficient. The optical properties did not change up to temperature of coagulation (about 53 degrees C) and sharply increased during heating up to 70 degrees C. Monitoring of the expansion of interstitial coagulation front within freshly excised canine tissues was performed in real time with spatial resolution of about 0.6 mm. The results of our study suggest that this technique can potentially be used for real time precise thermotherapy of malignant and benign lesions at depths of the order of the centimetre.