Point of Care Ultrasound Bladder Volume Calculation on the Acute Medical Unit.

Nursing staff, healthcare assistants (HCAs) and other healthcare professionals on the Acute Medical Unit (AMU) at Royal Berkshire Hospital (RBH) were taught a Point of Care Ultrasound (POCUS) skill during a twenty minute session. Practitioners learned how to take bladder volume measurements with the Butterfly iQ, a portable ultrasound device which provides a visually-aided method of volume measurement. A Likert scale was used to measure the confidence that staff had in performing volume measurements with the AMU automated scanners, and with the semi-automated Butterfly iQ.

Laser therapy and photosensitive medication: a review of the evidence.

In the 2009 guidelines from the BMLA, the use of non-essential aesthetic lasers was contraindicated in patients receiving medication that causes whole-body photosensitisation as well as those causing local light sensitisation. Following this and anecdotal advice, many laser centres refuse to treat patients who are on known photosensitive medication. Therefore, specific patient cohorts that would benefit from laser therapy are being denied because of medications, such as long-term antibiotics for chronic facial acne.

Electromagnetic interference from lasers and intense light sources in the treatment of patients with artificial pacemakers and other implantable cardiac devices.

Measurements of the electric and magnetic field strengths surrounding six laser systems and one intense pulsed light system were carried out. The results were compared to exposure limits published by cardiac device manufacturers to assess the risk of electromagnetic interference to implantable cardiac devices such as pacemakers or implantable cardioverter defibrillators. The majority of lasers assessed in this study were found to produce electric and magnetic field strengths below the published exposure limits for cardiac devices.

Finite element analysis of thermal and acoustic processes during laser tattoo removal.

Background And Objective: Q-switched laser therapy is commonly used for the removal of tattoos. However, despite ever increasing demand for this intervention, a better understanding of the mechanisms that result in pigment reduction is required in order to optimise outcomes and reduce the number of treatment episodes.

Study Design: A finite element analysis computer simulation was developed to model the fragmentation response of ink granules during irradiation of a professional black tattoo using a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser.

Simulating light transport through skin for color prediction of port wine stain lesions: a review.

A survey of the literature is presented regarding the simulation of port wine stain (PWS) skin color. Knowledge of PWS features, such as the depths and diameters of affected vessels, is essential for informing laser treatment. These may be determined through the inverse application of a skin model.

Optical properties of human skin.

A survey of the literature is presented that provides an analysis of the optical properties of human skin, with particular regard to their applications in medicine. Included is a description of the primary interactions of light with skin and how these are commonly estimated using radiative transfer theory (RTT). This is followed by analysis of measured RTT coefficients available in the literature.

Determination of the thermal and physical properties of black tattoo ink using compound analysis.

Despite the widespread use of laser therapy in the removal of tattoos, comparatively little is known about its mechanism of action. There is a need for an improved understanding of the composition and thermal properties of the tattoo ink in order that simulations of laser therapy may be better informed and treatment parameters optimised. Scanning electron microscopy and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry identified that the relative proportions of the constituent compounds of the ink likely to exist in vivo are the following: carbon black pigment (89 %), carvacrol (5 %), eugenol (2 %), hexenol (3 %) and propylene glycol (1 %).

Adverse effects following Q-switched ruby laser treatment of pigmented lesions.

A retrospective study was conducted to investigate the incidence of adverse effects following Q-switched ruby laser treatment of pigmented lesions at the Wessex Specialist Laser Centre. Sixty-one patients received a total of 151 treatments between January 2006 and January 2008. This is the largest series to date of patients on whom adverse effects have been reported following Q-switched ruby laser treatment of an assortment of pigmented lesions.

Spectrophotometers for the clinical assessment of port-wine stain skin lesions: a review.

Reflectance spectrophotometry is the most established and widely used objective technique for the assessment of port-wine stain (PWS) skin, and has been applied extensively in other dermatological applications. To date, no review has been published regarding the different spectrophotometric devices used on PWS skin. This paper comprises such a review, introducing the reader to the relevant background material and then discussing scanning, narrow-band and tristimulus spectrophotometers in turn.