Laser surgery planning in gastrointestinal neoplasms by means of predictive modeling

Abstract

Neoplasms incidence is high among different pathologies that affect the gastrointestinal tract. Some of them, such as gastric antral vascular ectasia or actinic proctitis may require an endoscopic surgical procedure that is usually performed by means of Argon Plasma Coagulated or radiofrequency. The reduced treated area or magnetic resonance incompatibility are some drawbacks associated with these conventional techniques. Optical surgery could help solve such problems and would provide a more accurate control of both ablative and coagulative effects. In this work, laser surgery application to the resection of colon tumors is studied by a predictive model that integrates both the laser radiation propagation and the ablation process. Results show the removed tumor volume taking into account different types of malignant tissues under different laser settings. Therefore they are of great interest in treatment planning to select the optimum source parameters to remove a particular tumor.