1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a laser treatment apparatus for irradiating a skin with a laser beam for treatment.
2. Description of Related Art
There has been known a laser treatment apparatus for irradiating a skin of a patient with a laser beam for treatment (hereinafter referred to as a treatment beam) to remove birthmarks, stains, tattoos being on the skin or to cause depilation. A type of this apparatus is provided with a handpiece that houses an optical system for irradiation of a treatment beam. This handpiece is designed to be directly held by an operator for operations. Thus, the operator can carry out laser irradiation (with a treatment beam) on a treatment part of the skin while manually moving the handpiece. Recently, some handpieces are provided with peripheral devices such as a scanner for scanning a treatment beam and a cooler for cooling the treatment part.
However, it would be difficult for the operator to perform the laser irradiation by means of the handpiece while moving it by hand with respect to different parts of a patient""s body to be treated. The operator is occasionally forced to carry out the treatment in an unnatural position depending on a body part of a patient.
Furthermore, the hand piece provided with peripheral devices such as a scanner and a cooler is hard to handle due to its size and weight. Consequently, the burden on the operator would increase and the laser irradiating operation could not be adequately carried out.
The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances and has an object to overcome the above problems and to provide a laser treatment apparatus enabling an operator to perform laser irradiation with ease and less burden on him.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.
To achieve the purpose of the invention, there is a laser treatment apparatus for irradiating a treatment part with a laser beam for treatment, the apparatus including: a treatment light irradiation unit including: a treatment light source which emits the treatment laser beam; an irradiation optical system which delivers the treatment laser beam emitted from the light source to irradiate the treatment part; and a laser emission end unit internally provided with a part of the irradiation optical system; a movement unit which moves the emission end unit with respect to the treatment part; a determination unit which determines an irradiation position of the treatment laser beam; and a control section which transmits a control signal to the movement unit based on a determination result by the determination unit and controls laser irradiation.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a laser treatment apparatus for irradiating a treatment part with a laser beam for treatment, the apparatus including: a treatment light irradiation unit including: a treatment light source which emits the treatment laser beam; an irradiation optical system which delivers the treatment laser beam emitted from the light source to irradiate the treatment part; and a laser emission end unit internally provided with a part of the irradiation optical system; a first movement unit which moves the emission end unit to change an inclination angle of a laser emission direction of the emission end unit with respect to the treatment part; a second movement unit which moves the emission end unit to change a position of the emission end unit in a two-dimensional direction parallel to a reference plane with respect to the treatment part; a third movement unit which moves the emission end unit to change a distance from the emission end unit to the treatment part in the laser emission direction; and a determination unit including: an angle detection unit which detects the inclination angle of the laser emission direction of the emission end unit with respect to the treatment part; a position detection unit which detects the position of the emission end unit in the two-dimensional direction parallel to the reference plane with respect to the treatment part; a distance detection unit which detects the distance from the emission end unit to the treatment part in the laser emission direction; and a determination section which determines an irradiation position of the treatment laser beam so that the inclination angle of the emission end unit in the laser emission direction becomes substantially perpendicular to the treatment part and the treatment laser beam comes in focus on the treatment part; and a control section which transmits a control signal to at least one of the movement units based on a determination result by the determination unit and controls laser irradiation.