• Journal of Innovative Optical Health Sciences
  • Vol. 8, Issue 3, 1541007 (2015)
Caihua Liu1、2, Rui Shi1、2, Min Chen3、*, and Dan Zhu1、2
Author Affiliations
  • 1Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics Huazhong University of Science and Technology Wuhan 430074, P. R. China
  • 2MoE Key Laboratory of Biomedical Photonics of Ministry of Education Department of Biomedical Engineering Huazhong University of Science and Technology Wuhan 430074, P. R. China
  • 3Department of Medicine, Affiliated Hospital Huazhong University of Science and Technology Wuhan 430074, P. R. China
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    DOI: 10.1142/s1793545815410072 Cite this Article
    Caihua Liu, Rui Shi, Min Chen, Dan Zhu. Quantitative evaluation of enhanced laser tattoo removal by skin optical clearing[J]. Journal of Innovative Optical Health Sciences, 2015, 8(3): 1541007 Copy Citation Text show less

    Abstract

    Lasers have been widely used for tattoo removal, but the limited light penetration depth caused by high skin scattering property restricts the therapeutic outcome of deep tattoo. Skin optical clearing method, by introducing optical clearing agent (OCA) into skin, has shown some improvement in the effect of laser tattoo removal. In this study, the enhanced laser tattoo removal has been quantitatively assessed. OCA was applied to the skin of tattoo animal model and Q-switched Nd:YAG laser (1064 nm) irradiation was used to remove the tattoo. The skin evaluation instrument (Mexameter probe, MPA580) was applied to measure the content of tattoo pigment before and after laser treatment, and then the clearance rate of pigment was calculated. Further, Monte Carlo (MC) method was utilized to simulate the effect of skin optical clearing on light transmission in tattoo skin model. By comparing the pigment change of tattoo areas respectively treated with OCA plus laser and single laser, it was found that pigment clearance of the former tattoo area was increased by 1.5-fold. Further, the MC simulation verified that the reduced light scattering in skin could increase the effective dose of luminous flux reaching to the deep tattoo regions. It can be concluded from both experiment and theoretical simulations that skin optical clearing technique could improve the outcome of laser tattoo removal, which should be beneficial for clinical laser tattoo removal and other laser pigment elimination.
    Caihua Liu, Rui Shi, Min Chen, Dan Zhu. Quantitative evaluation of enhanced laser tattoo removal by skin optical clearing[J]. Journal of Innovative Optical Health Sciences, 2015, 8(3): 1541007
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