Micropulse Grid Laser for Ocular Tissue Precision
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional laser photocoagulation techniques lack precision in treating ocular conditions like diabetic retinopathy near sensitive tissues such as the fovea and macula, often causing damage to these areas.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that use a treatment beam to deliver short duration pulses incrementally scanned across target positions on the retina, with a duty cycle of no greater than 9%, avoiding traditional photocoagulation and inducing photoactivation, while using an aiming beam to define treatment boundaries and patterns to minimize damage to sensitive tissues.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional laser photocoagulation techniques are used to treat ocular conditions, then therapeutic benefits are achieved, but sensitive tissue such as the fovea and macula is damaged
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies periodic pulsed laser action instead of continuous laser exposure. The laser delivers short pulses at specific intervals, allowing thermal relaxation between pulses. This periodic delivery mechanism achieves therapeutic photocoagulation effects while preventing excessive heat accumulation that would damage sensitive ocular tissues like the fovea and macula.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes key laser parameters including pulse duration, pulse interval, and duty cycle to optimize treatment outcomes. By adjusting these parameters, the system delivers sufficient energy for therapeutic effect while maintaining safe temperature levels that protect sensitive tissues from damage.
2Area of stationary object
If laser energy is delivered to treat areas close to sensitive tissue, then treatment coverage is improved, but risk of damage to sensitive tissue increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by delivering laser energy with spatially varying characteristics. The pulsed laser protocol allows different thermal histories and energy deposition patterns in different regions, enabling safe treatment near sensitive tissues while maintaining effective treatment coverage in less sensitive areas.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs beforehand cushioning by using pulsed delivery with intervals between pulses. This allows thermal energy to dissipate before the next pulse, preventing heat accumulation that could damage sensitive tissues. The timing protocol is designed in advance to protect vulnerable areas while achieving treatment goals.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If short duration pulses are used to avoid traditional photocoagulation, then tissue damage is reduced, but treatment time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent maintains continuity of useful action by delivering multiple pulses in a systematic pattern that covers the treatment area efficiently. Although each individual pulse is short, the cumulative effect of multiple pulses delivered in sequence achieves the desired therapeutic outcome without excessive total treatment time.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs preliminary action by pre-planning the pulse delivery sequence and parameters before treatment begins. The treatment protocol is designed in advance to optimize the balance between pulse duration, number of pulses, and total treatment time, ensuring efficient delivery that minimizes treatment duration while protecting tissue.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach allows for precise therapeutic treatment of ocular conditions like diabetic retinopathy and macular edema, reducing tissue damage and ensuring sensitive areas are not affected, thereby improving treatment accuracy and minimizing side effects.
Implementation Method 1
a total number of pulses directed to each target position is sufficient to induce photoactivation of a therapeutic healing response at that position
Implementation Method 2
one or more light beams may be directed into the eye and/or onto retinal tissue to cause photocoagulation of the tissue so as to finely cauterize ocular blood vessels
Data Source
Figure 1A~1C
Figure 1D~1G
Figure 2A~2B
AI summary
The procedures described herein may involve using one or more treatment beams to induce one or more therapeutic benefits. In some embodiments, a series of short duration light pulses may be delivered to ocular tissue at a plurality of target locations with a thermal relaxation time delay to limit the temperature rise of the target ocular tissue and thereby limit a thermal effect to only a desired portion of the ocular tissue. The thermal relaxation time delay may be roughly equivalent to a duration of a scan of the treatment beam between each of the target locations. Such procedures may be used to treat diabetic retinopathy, macular edema, and/or other conditions of the eye. The treatment beam may be delivered at each target location within a sufficiently short duration so as to produce a visual appearance of a treatment pattern on the ocular tissue of the patient's eye.