Optoperforations of Retinal Blood Vessels in an Intact Porcine Eye by Using a Femtosecond Laser-assisted Microsurgery System

Femtosecond (fs) laser microsurgery is a powerful method for its potential to treat various retinal diseases, as well as to study the sub-cellular functions, because of its capability to selectively ablate a specific target (in vitro and in vivo) with minimal damage to the surrounding tissues. Here, we develop an fs-laser based microsurgery system, along with ophthalmoscope-assisted dynamic optical imaging system, for retinopathy treatment. The system is equipped with a galvano-scanner and a real-time imaging system. The laser system used for the current study consists of a regenerative amplified Ti-sapphire (λ = 810 nm) laser, delivering a 150-fs pulse at a repetition rate of 1 kHz. The illumination light from a white light-emitting diode (LED) was optically filtered to be maximally absorbed by blood, which allowed us to effectively differentiate the blood vessels from the retina surface. The estimated threshold fluences for inner limiting membrane (ILM) ablation and the primary blood vessel wall perforations within an intact porcine eye were found to be 2.6 ± 0.2 J/cm^2 and 5.0 ± 0.1 J/cm^2, respectively. The present work should be an important step in ongoing exploration of the use of femtosecond lasers for the purpose of treating retinal blood vessels. KCI Citation Count: 1