Functional and Physical Outcomes following Use of a Flexible CO₂ Laser Fiber and Bipolar Electrocautery in Close Proximity to the Rat Sciatic Nerve with Correlation to an In Vitro Thermal Profile Model

Figure 4

Upper plot shows the spatial temperature distribution for different time intervals after the laser pulse was delivered to thermochromic ink gel. The -axis shows the distances from left to right across the diameter of the ablation cone. The -axis is the temperature of the gel, each trace being a different time following the laser pulse delivery (upper traces are sooner after the pulse). The center of the ablation cone is at about 1.2 mm where the temperature was well above 35°C. It can be seen that immediately after the laser pulse for a diameter of about 1 mm the temperature increase is more than 10°C. Lower plot shows estimation of the maximum temperature in the center of the ablation cone by fitting the decrease in temperature over time with a simple exponential function. The maximum temperature was above 100°C.

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