Abstract: An articulating, steerable surgical probe includes an elongated, flexible transfer tube adapted for insertion into a surgical region for endoscopic laryngeal laser surgery. A lumen is defined by an interior of the transfer tube, and a laser fiber extends through the lumen for delivering a therapeutic laser signal to a distal end of the laser fiber. An articulating tip at the distal end of the transfer tube is responsive to articulating forces from a retractable tether for directing the treatment probe in a direction of the articulation, and a linkage to the tether from a control module effects controlled retraction of the tether for articulating the tip towards a surgical target, such that the articulating tip imposing a bend radius based on a signal loss through the laser fiber.

Abstract: A method of assessing optical properties of surgical tissue by observing the tissue thermal response to laser irradiation includes exposing the tissue in a surgical region to a short laser pulse for triggering a localized temperature increase, and observing the triggered temperature increase by a thermal sensor. Optical properties of the tissue are then estimated, for determining laser surgery parameters for an eminent procedure, based on the observed temperature increase. In an example configuration, the thermal sensor is a thermal infrared camera, and estimation includes using an Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF) for comparing the temperature sensor data with the output of a computational laser-tissue interaction model.

Abstract: An articulating, steerable surgical probe includes an elongated, flexible transfer tube adapted for insertion into a surgical region for endoscopic laryngeal laser surgery. A lumen is defined by an interior of the transfer tube, and a laser fiber extends through the lumen for delivering a therapeutic laser signal to a distal end of the laser fiber. An articulating tip at the distal end of the transfer tube is responsive to articulating forces from a retractable tether for directing the treatment probe in a direction of the articulation, and a linkage to the tether from a control module effects controlled retraction of the tether for articulating the tip towards a surgical target, such that the articulating tip imposing a bend radius based on a signal loss through the laser fiber.