Laser in bladder tumors

Malignant bladder tumors account for most of the tumors. Among them, 2/3 are non-muscle invasive carcinoma, which means that most bladder tumors invade shallow tissues, and as long as early and appropriate surgery has a better impact on patient survival than other organ tumors. The principle of bladder tumor treatment is a comprehensive treatment mainly based on surgery, and early surgery to remove the tumor is the most crucial. At present, as long as the bladder tumor does not invade the muscular layer of the bladder, minimally invasive surgery can be used to preserve the bladder and normal urination after surgery. The bladder endoscope is inserted through the urethra, and the tumor is removed with special equipment after observing it under direct vision. The equipment used to remove the bladder tumor can be monopolar high-frequency electric knife or bipolar plasma electric knife. Since there are rich nerves in the bladder, especially for tumors located in the lateral wall of the bladder, closed-hole nerve reflex will occur when the tumor is removed, which may cause incomplete removal of the tumor and recurrence in mild cases; in severe cases, it may cause hemorrhage and even threaten life. It is difficult for the surgeon to avoid this phenomenon even if he is more careful, so it becomes a problem. The application of thulium laser for tumor resection overcomes the deficiency of closed nerve reflex, especially the high power thulium laser developed in recent years is used in the clinic. Since the wavelength of this laser is around 2 microns, it has become the first choice for minimally invasive treatment of bladder tumors due to its very high cutting efficiency on tissues, very thin thermal damage, good hemostasis, and fine cutting effect. The additional advantage of this laser is that the distant metastasis is lower than other electrodesiccation methods due to the rapid closure of microvessels and prevention of the return flow of tumor cells into the blood. Thulium laser resection of bladder tumors differs from conventional tumor electrosurgery in that the tumor is removed in its entirety. For slightly large bladder tumors electrodes are often used to remove the tumor in pieces, while thulium laser resection is used to remove the entire tumor at the base, reducing the chance of surgical residuals. The disadvantage of thulium laser surgery is that the equipment is high and it can only be performed in large scale hospitals.