Lasers: Medicine's shining star
Gums to eyes, heart disease to cancer, lasers becoming vital
Greenville News

A dentist reshapes gum tissue with a laser spewing carbon dioxide. A gynecologist finesses a beam of light to destroy scar tissue inside a woman's fallopian tubes.

For 51-year-old Norma Martin of Easley, surgery with a high-tech beam of light has meant she can see without glasses for the first time since she was 4 years old. The laser procedure last week reshaped her nearsighted eyes.

"I don't understand the concept. I just know that it worked," she said. "It's given me a miracle."

Lasers and light-emitting devices are becoming essential parts of medicine. While they're continually being fine-tuned across the country, a growing number of Upstate doctors are using the techniques to treat diseases and disorders including vision problems, cancer and heart disease.

Some of the procedures, like the surgery to treat nearsightedness, can cost as much as $5,000 and aren't covered by insurance, but laser procedures are less expensive in other cases and generally are less invasive than traditional surgery.

Most lasers aren't painful, and surgeons can be more precise. And unlike a knife, a laser carries no bacteria, which reduces the risk of infection. Lasers cause less scarring and swelling and often require fewer stitches.

"Just as the ... microchip changed our lives in the 20th century, lasers are poised to do the same in the 21st," said Daniel Kilper, an assistant professor of physics at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.

While laser surgery, like any medical procedure, has possible risks and complications, lasers themselves have few drawbacks, said Kilper, who conducts research using them.

In a few years, health care administrators expect to see doctors use lasers to produce X-ray-like images to detect breast cancer.

The future of heart medicine also likely will increasingly involve lasers, especially for people who cannot be operated on because their arteries are too scarred, said Dr. Barry Davis, a Greenville heart surgeon. The first laser for treating heart disease was approved by the Food and Drug Administration last year.

During the procedure, a doctor fires a laser to create small pathways in the heart muscle. The channels can stimulate regeneration of blood vessels that serve the heart.

At a hospital laboratory in Boston, doctors are working with lasers that treat psoriasis and lasers that look below the skin to help surgeons see more clearly before they cut.

And at colleges like the University of Pennsylvania and Duke University, doctors are experimenting with a treatment that attacks microscopic cancer cells in the chest cavity that can't be removed with surgery.

Days before surgery, the patient receives a light-activated drug that concentrates within the cancer cells. Once the visible tumor is removed, doctors shine a laser within the chest cavity to activate the drug and destroy whatever cancer remains.

The procedure has received FDA approval for the treatment of esophageal and early-stage lung cancer. One side effect is that the patient is temporarily sensitive to light.

Future laser uses include much less invasive surgery using lasers no bigger than the tip of a needle.

"The biggest thing about a laser is that it's extremely precise," said Dr. Tom Price, a doctor at the Center for Women's Medicine at the Greenville Hospital System who takes care of women with high-risk pregnancies.

Price uses laser technology weekly, usually for laparoscopic procedures, surgeries where doctors go through the bellybutton to operate in the abdominal area. The laser is used to vaporize and take out adhesions and scar tissue.

Other doctors use lasers to treat precancerous growths on the cervix and sexually transmitted viral warts.

Lasers have long been used in the offices of eye doctors. The newest generation of laser eye surgery, LASIK, can correct high levels of nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism.

Norma Martin learned about the procedure from her 32-year-old daughter, who underwent the procedure in October.

"She was so overwhelmed by it. She said, "Mom, you should really do this.' I told her that I thought my eyes were so bad that there would be no hope," Martin said.

The legal secretary can now read documents and see her computer screen without wearing glasses. "I still find myself reaching for my glasses in the morning," she said.