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While the laser has been used by ophthalmologists for almost thirty years to treat diseases of the retina, its application in medicine and surgery has expanded in recent years. In the field of general surgery, the laser has been used to incise and remove skin, muscle, fat, tumors, and almost any tissue imaginable.
The main advantage of the laser over traditional stainless steel scalpels and scissors is that laser incisions tend to bleed less and thus the time it takes to perform most operations may be decreased slightly (because there's far more to most operations than simply controlling bleeding). With laser blepharoplasty, eyelid fat can be removed without first clamping to prevent bleeding, a step that may eliminate some slight discomfort.
The first laser to be used widely in blepharoplasty was the neo-dymium:YAG (Nd:YAG) laser, an instrument in which the laser power is transmitted through a fiberoptic coil to a probe that can be applied directly to the skin. Laser energy is used to simultaneously cut tissue and coagulate blood vessels. While this seemed to offer some potential advantages, many surgeons have found otherwise . . .
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