Lasers and Bone Surgery

Medical advances for bone surgical procedures are, among others, facilitated by suitable and practice-oriented drilling and bone-cutting techniques. A promising alternative to drills, microsaws, trephines, and piezosurgery for osteotomy procedures is bone osteotomy using lasers. In vitro osteotomies using human bone initially used industrial lasers, such as a 250-watt (W) carbon dioxide (CO2) CW laser. Due to the effect that CO2 lasers are not routinely efficient without carbonization and thermal damage, high expectations were placed on the group of the excimer lasers. The Er, Cr:YASGG laser seems to be today the only efficient laser wavelength for bone ablation and bone cutting, which can be used in oral surgery, periodontology, and implant dentistry with comparable results like the conventional osteotomy and therefore can be recommended for clinical use.