Biophysics
What do biology and physics have in common?
There is one main thing they both have in common. Which is medical treatments. Not treatments such as getting stiches and fixing a broken bone but things such as PET scanners, ultra sound, MRI, and using lasers in surgery.
You wouldn't think that using lasers in surgery is a combination of biology and physics, but using lasers is physics and surgery on an animal or the human body is biology. But what is laser surgery?
Surgeons use lasers to cut tissue, not the tissue we use to blow our noses but the tissue in your body. Lasers are used to cut or destroy tissue that is abnormal or diseased without harming healthy, normal tissue. If a surgeon were to use a scalpel it wouldn't be as precise, it would work, but not as well. Also, using a laser would cut down the blood loss, because when using a scalpel and different tools in surgery there is an immense amount of blood loss.
In every type of laser surgery a different type of laser is used. The type of laser used in LASIK eye surgery is called the excimer laser because it uses an eye tracking system that follows the patient's eye. Other types of lasers are:
- Carbon Dioxide laser - it produces enough heat to minimize bleeding while cutting through tissues
- Neodymiun laser - it can cut through more deeply than other lasers and helps the surgeons to see and reach parts of the body that other lasers cannot reach
- Argon laser - this laser is used to shrink tumors
Lasers aren't only used for surgery purposes but also to:
- relieve pain
- improve appearence (minimize wrinkles)
- restore functions
You wouldn't think that lasers couldn't do much more but they can also eliminate moles, warts, tattoos, agina, and they are used in dentistry when healing diseases in your gums.
Advantages of laser surgery?
Unlike normal surgery which involves a lot of bleeding, laser surgery hardly involves any blood loss. It's called "bloodless surgery" and it's because the heat from the laser causes the tissues to calm down and it reduces the risk of infection that you might catch during conventional surgery. Laser surgery also takes less time and usually costs less. Sealing off blood vessels and nerves using lasers reduces the swelling and scarring after the surgery unlike conventional surgery which causes a lot of pain afterwards.
While there are tons of advantages, there are also disadvantages. Those are:
- If the physicians isn't properly trained the surgery could be a complete waste
- If not performed in a hospital, the surgery might not go as well
- If an emergency happens and the physician isn't trained/ready that could lead to disaster for the patient
It isn't just biology and physics that have things in common but also biology and chemistry, and climate change. Thinking that it's only these two that have the biggest thing in common is correct because biology is the most common out of the four named and combining it with physics makes it even more of an interesting topic.
Agina - chest pain
