Organ ablation

Table 16.5. Catheters and embolic agents used for organ ablation...

Much of the energy deposited in a sample by a laser pulse or beam ablates as neutral material and not ions. Ordinarily, the neutral substances are simply pumped away, and the ions are analyzed by the mass spectrometer. To increase the number of ions formed, there is often a second ion source to produce ions from the neutral materials, thereby enhancing the total ion yield. This secondary or additional mode of ionization can be effected by electrons (electron ionization, El), reagent gases (chemical ionization. Cl), a plasma torch, or even a second laser pulse. The additional ionization is often organized as a pulse (electrons, reagent gas, or laser) that follows very shortly after the... 

Until about the 1990s, visible light played little intrinsic part in the development of mainstream mass spectrometry for analysis, but, more recently, lasers have become very important as ionization and ablation sources, particularly for polar organic substances (matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization, MALDI) and intractable solids (isotope analysis), respectively. 

The ablated vapors constitute an aerosol that can be examined using a secondary ionization source. Thus, passing the aerosol into a plasma torch provides an excellent means of ionization, and by such methods isotope patterns or ratios are readily measurable from otherwise intractable materials such as bone or ceramics. If the sample examined is dissolved as a solid solution in a matrix, the rapid expansion of the matrix, often an organic acid, covolatilizes the entrained sample. Proton transfer from the matrix occurs to give protonated molecular ions of the sample. Normally thermally unstable, polar biomolecules such as proteins give good yields of protonated ions. This is the basis of matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI). 

Subliming ablators are being used in a variety of manufacturing appHcations. The exposure of some organic polymers to pulsed uv-laser radiation results in spontaneous ablation by the sublimation of a controUed thickness of the material. This photoetching technique is utilized in the patterning of polymer films (40,41) (see PHOTOCHEMICAL TECHNOLOGY). 

Hiroshi Fukumura received his M.Sc and Ph.D. degrees from Tohoku University, Japan. He studied biocompatibility of polymers in the Government Industrial Research Institute of Osaka from 1983 to 1988. He became an assistant professor at Kyoto Institute of Technology in 1988, and then moved to the Department of Applied Physics, Osaka University in 1991, where he worked on the mechanism of laser ablation and laser molecular implantation. Since 1998, he is a professor in the Department of Chemistry at Tohoku University. He received the Award of the Japanese Photochemistry Association in 2000, and the Award for Creative Work from The Chemical Society Japan in 2005. His main research interest is the physical chemistry of organic molecules including polymeric materials studied with various kinds of time-resolved techniques and scanning probe microscopes. 

A. Andreotti, M.P. Colombini, G. Lantema, M. Rizzi, A Novel Approach for High Selective Micro Sampling of Organic Painting Materials by Er YAG Laser Ablation, Journal of Cultural Heritage, 4, 355 361 (2003). 

Photo/Thermal Reactions. The fifth basic class of photopolymer chemistry that can be used in commercial applications is based more on physical changes in a polymer-based matrix than on chemical reactions. A recent application of this technology is the laser ablation (77) of an organic coating on a flat support to directly produce a printing plate. The availability of newer high energy lasers will allow more applications to be based on the photo/thermal mechanism. 

The action of catecholamines released at the synapse is modulated by diffusion and reuptake into presynaptic nerve terminals. Catecholamines diffuse from the site of release, interact with receptors and are transported back into the nerve terminal. Some of the catecholamine molecules may be catabolized by MAO and COMT. The cate-cholamine-reuptake process was originally described by Axelrod [18]. He observed that, when radioactive norepinephrine was injected intravenously, it accumulated in tissues in direct proportion to the density of the sympathetic innervation in the tissue. The amine taken up into the tissues was protected from catabolic degradation, and studies of the subcellular distribution of catecholamines showed that they were localized to synaptic vesicles. Ablation of the sympathetic input to organs abolished the ability of vesicles to accumulate and store radioactive norepinephrine. Subsequent studies demonstrated that this Na+- and Cl -dependent uptake process is a characteristic feature of catecholamine-containing neurons in both the periphery and the brain (Table 12-2). 

---