Photoacoustic-monitored laser treatment for tattoo removal: a feasibility study

Skin blemishes and diseases have attracted increasing research interest in recent decades, due to their growing frequency of occurrence and the severity of related diseases. Various laser treatment approaches have been introduced for the alleviation and removal of skin pigmentation. The treatments' effects highly depend on the experience and prognosis of the relevant operators. But, the operation process lacks real-time feedback, which may directly reflect the extent of the treatment. In this manuscript, we report a photoacoustic-guided laser treatment method with a feasibility study, specifically for laser treatment targeting the tattoo's removal. The results well validated the feasibility of the proposed method through the experiments on phantoms and ex vivo pig skin samples.