Nasal and Sinus Surgery
Nasal and sinus disease (polyposis, sinusitis) affects millions of Americans and is frequently seen in patients suffering from allergies. Medical management (pharmaceuticals, etc.) is often but not always effective in treating the symptoms of sinus disease. When medical management is ineffective, sinus surgery may be indicated.

SLT has developed and introduced products enabling a revolutionary new surgical procedure for treating sinus problems called Sinu-Clear™ Laser Sinus Surgery. With Sinu-Clear, warm water (saline) is combined with controlled laser energy to allow gentle and precise removal of diseased tissue. With the warm irrigation providing vasoconstriction and the laser providing tissue coagulation, there is minimal to virtually no bleeding. The minimal bleeding and warm water flow provide excellent surgical visualization, for optimum safety and minimal risk of complications. This allows for a safe and complete sinus procedure.

Laser Surgery for Snoring
Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP) has been proven to be extremely effective for the treatment of snoring, and moderately effective for the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). However, UPPP is a major surgical procedure usually requiring hospitalization and general anesthesia. Laser-assisted uvulopalatoplasty (LAUP), which was first introduced to the United States in 1993, is a less aggressive procedure with lower morbidity than UPPP and has been found almost equally effective in the management of snoring. (The effectiveness of LAUP, however, in the management of OSA has not been defined yet.)

The LAUP procedure is designed to primarily produce shortening and tightening of the velum and uvula. The ideal LAUP candidate is a patient with primarily palato-uvular snoring without lateral pharyngeal wall redundancy or tonsillar hyperplasia and who has mild or no OSA.

The SLT Contact LAser is ideally suited to perform the LAUP procedure quickly and easily with minimal bleeding.

Tonsillectomy
To perform a tonsillectomy, the surgical tool most often chosen is an electrosurgery tool, where electricity is used to dissect the tonsil and to stop bleeding More recently, the use of a variety of lasers has been explored as an alternative tool to perform this procedure.

Due to its unique characteristics, the SLT Contact Laser™ system can be used to perform a tonsillectomy with the utmost in precision and hemostasis (control of bleeding). The precision offered with the SLT Contact Laser can minimize trauma to underlying tissue, thus improving the post-operative recovery.

Spinal Surgery
Scar Tissue Dissection: The precision and control offered by the SLT Contact Laser is ideally suited for precise microdissection of scar tissue, such as in a tethered cord release.

Tumor Removal: The precision and control of the SLT Contact Laser is also ideally suited for precise microdissection of tumors about the spinal cord and brain stem.

Cranial Surgery
The precision, hemostasis and control of the SLT Contact Laser is ideally suited for excision of cranial tumors, especially when precise control of thermal effect is critical, such as for tumors about the visual pathway, hypothalamus, brain stem, and acoustic neuromas. The SLT Contact Laser system can be used in both open and endoscopic fashion.

Third Ventriculostomy
Hydrocephalus is a clinical condition (i.e., congenital or acquired) caused by an imbalance between the production and absorption of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) within the ventricular system caused by an obstruction of CSF circulation . . . The standard treatment for obstructive hydrocephalus has been the implantation of ventricular peritoneal (VP) shunts to divert the flow of CSF. This method, thought effective, can be associated with problems (e.g., blockage, infection). The SLT Contact Laser has been shown to be a safe and effective tool for performing a third ventriculostomy for hydrocephalus.

Prostate Laser Surgery
Traditional electrosurgical Transurethral Resection of the Prostate (TURP) has been widely utilized and has remained relatively unchanged for 50 years, despite the fact that it is associated with post-op bleeding, morbidity, hospital stay and high costs. Recent advances in the use of lasers for urinary outflow obstructions are now being widely reported as providing significant benefits to the patient.

The SLT Contact Laser System offers several large contact probes to enable fast, efficient and hemostatic prostate vaporization.

Hysterectomy
One of the most commonly performed surgical procedure in the United States. Recent advances in available surgical device technologies have enabled gynecologists to perform hysterectomies less invasively, in a procedure called laparoscopically assisted vaginal hysterectomy (LAVH). While this procedure offers numerous benefits to the patient, it provides some new challenges to the surgeon.

The surgeon is assisted in overcoming these challenges with advanced instrumentation. One such device, the SLT Contact Laser, offers the gynecologist unparalleled precision, hemostasis and control during laparoscopic surgery, and has become extremely useful for a variety of advanced gynecologic laparoscopic surgeries, including LAVH.

Infertility
Specialists today can offer a multitude of treatment options to help infertile couples conceive. In some cases, the indicated treatment option is a type of surgery called laparoscopic surgery. In laparoscopic surgery, the gynecologic surgeon is able to perform surgery through two, three or sometimes four small ports (approximately 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch in diameter in the abdomen. Depending on the nature of the problem, the surgeon may be able to treat the problem through this laparoscopic approach, and thus avoid a larger abdominal surgical incision. The benefits to the patient of the laparoscopic approach include less post-operative pain, shorter hospital stay and recovery time, and smaller, less noticeable scars.

The extent of infertility problems that can be treated laparoscopically will depend on, among other things, the nature and location of the disease, the laparoscopic skills of the gynecologist, and the surgical tools utilized by the gynecologist. A variety of laparoscopic tools are available to the surgeon, including among other things, several types of lasers. The SLT Contact Laser offers the advanced operative gynecologist a surgical tool with unparalleled precision, hemostatic, control and versatility in infertility and other advanced laproscopic gynecology procedures.