Patent ID: 6322555
Filing Date: 2001-11-27
Classification: A61B,A61F

Abstract:
A method for monitoring a laser surgery system which produces a sequence of laser pulses of varying spatial dimensions in accordance with a treatment algorithm run by a treatment computer, comprising the steps of:beam splitting each laser pulse in a sequence of calibration pulses of various spatial dimensions, so as to apply a predetermined portion of light energy of each pulse to a photo detector;providing output signals of the photo detector to a monitoring computer and associating the output signals of the photo detector with corresponding pulses of various spatial dimensions to obtain a reference value for each type of pulse;beam splitting a sequence of treatment laser pulses of various spatial dimensions so as to apply the predetermined portion of the light energy of each treatment pulse to the photo detector and to simultaneously apply another portion of the energy of each pulse to treat a patient; andcomparing an output signal from the photo detector corresponding to a treatment laser pulse with a reference value for that type of pulse, wherein the reference value is obtained by using a treatment algorithm in the monitoring computer to identify the type of pulse which should be being administered in the treatment sequence and to select the corresponding reference value.