The high power laser has already occupied it place among the tools of oral surgery. In oral soft tissue surgery there have been established the most important indicational circles of the use of "first generation" lasers. The introduction into t he everiday clinical practice the first generation of surgical lasers brings new possibilities, but necessery the evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of this methods.

Naturally it is not applicable the laser always and everywhere, but frequently offers such advantages that are lacking with other techniques, thus it has become indispensable in modern surgery.

We would like to summarize our experience to use different laser systems in everyday clinical practice. We will evaluate a 10 -year period material. The patients were controlled 3-10 years after laser surgery.

Between January 1, 1987 and December 31, 199 6 6128 oral surgical interventions were performed. There were 55% male and 45% female patients, with a mean age of 45. 6 years / range 0.5-94/.

The overwhelming majority of our patients were operated on with carbon dioxide laser / table 1./, the number of argon , Nd YAG and combined laser applications is lower. Most of the lesions treated with carbon dioxide laser are benign tumors / table 2./, there were less cases of precancerous conditions, malignant tumors and other lesions.

Table 1. Distribution of the laser interventions according to the type of laser

Table 2. Distribution of the laser interventions according to the disease groups

The total number of risk patients was 791 (table 3.).

Table 3. Risk groups

METHODS FOR THE SOFT TISSUE LASER SURGERY

The most important laser surgical methods: coagulation, vaporization, excision (table 4.)

Table 4. Distribution of the interventions according to the laser surgical methods