Laser treatment apparatus

Details Laser treatment apparatus Laser treatment apparatus

2001-11-23

2004-01-20

Dvorak, Linda C. M. (Department: 3739)

Surgery

Instruments

Light application

C606S013000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06679877

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a laser treatment apparatus for performing treatment by irradiating a part to be treated with a laser beam for treatment.
2. Description of Related Art
A laser treatment apparatus used in a dermatologic clinic or hospital's dermatoligic department, for example, a laser treatment apparatus for use in depilation or treatment for angioma, is provided with a handpiece in order to irradiate a laser beam for treatment. Some handpieces incorporate a scanning system for scanning a laser beam for treatment on a part to be treated.
Meanwhile, in the apparatus of this type, a spot size of a laser beam for treatment may be changed according to symptoms of portions to be treated and treatment effects. Therefore, plural lens units having condensing lenses for forming different-sized spots are selectively attached to the handpiece.
The apparatus of this type is operated to perform laser irradiation while cooling an irradiation part in order to prevent damages on a skin during the laser irradiation. As a cooling system, there is a system of cooling a window which transmits a treatment laser beam by means of a cooling device and bringing the window into contact with the skin to cool it. This cooling window is also preferably selected from among plural windows different in size according to the size of an irradiation area and the shape of the irradiation part. Therefore there has been proposed an apparatus constructed to selectively attach window units having different-sized windows to the handpiece.
If the lens unit and the window unit are replaced with other units of different types, the type of the new unit has to be input in the apparatus for appropriate operations thereof. In the conventional apparatus, however, such input is manually effected by an operator using switches or the like, which causes the inconvenience of manual operations. If the input is forgotten or an error size is input, laser irradiation conditions such as irradiation density and laser power would be calculated in a different state from a desired one. Thus, proper treatment could not be performed and treatment effect could not be obtained as expected by the operator.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances and has an object to overcome the above problems and to provide a laser treatment apparatus capable of performing proper treatment by reducing inconvenience of input operations for an operator and preventing human error.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.
To achieve the purpose of the invention, there is provided a laser treatment apparatus including: a handpiece internally including an irradiation optical system for irradiating a laser beam for treatment; a lens disposing unit which can dispose a lens in the irradiation optical system, the lens being selectable from among a plurality of lenses of different types having different focal lengths; and a lens detecting unit which detects the type of the lens disposed in the irradiation optical system.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a laser treatment apparatus including: a handpiece internally including an irradiation optical system for irradiating a laser beam for treatment; a window attaching unit which can attach a window to the handpiece, the window being selectable from among a plurality of windows of different types having different-sized contact surfaces for contact with a skin; a cooling unit which cools the window attached to the handpiece; and a window detecting unit which detects the type of the attached window.


REFERENCES:
patent: 6384967 (2002-05-01), Watanabe et al.
patent: 6400395 (2002-06-01), Hoover et al.
patent: 6436094 (2002-08-01), Reuter
patent: 6491715 (2002-12-01), Abels et al.
patent: 0 880 941 (1998-12-01), None
patent: 1 057 454 (2000-12-01), None

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