Non-laser approach to photochemical tissue bonding

Abstract

Lasers have been used in the past to activate chemical cross-linking agents in photochemical tissue bonding; however, lasers are expensive and bound to only one wavelength, so that they cannot be used with bonding agents that have different activation wavelengths. Since light activation does not rely on the coherence of the radiation, but only on the wavelength and energy density, it is possible to use light sources other than lasers to generate this activation energy. In this paper the effectiveness of three bonding agents (methylene blue, rose bengal and fluoroscein) on human skin is tested using a non-laser light source. Tension and skin temperature measurements showed that skin adherence is as good as previously published laser-irradiated experiments, and that the light source does not induce thermal-related skin damage.