Healing of continuous-wave and rapid superpulsed, carbon dioxide, laser-induced bone defects.

With rabbits as the experimental model, a comparative study was done to assess the healing of bone in response to osteotomy by rapid superpulsed and continuous-wave carbon dioxide lasers. The laser was capable of easily incising bone; the rapid superpulsed mode required less energy to do so than did the continuous-wave mode. When the narrow zone of tissue necrosis adjacent to the laser osteotomy was debrided, it was found that healing was similar for each laser mode. Healing occurred in orderly progression from deposition of trabecular bone to formation of lamellar bone.