Laser circumcision uses a Carbon Dioxide (CO2) laser as the cutting tool instead of a metal surgical blade. The laser cuts the foreskin and also coagulates the blood, thereby providing haemostasis. It does not join the cut layers. The cutting is carried out with the foreskin pulled in front of the glans, as in a Clamp Forceps or Mogen Clamp circumcision, and afterwards the outer foreskin is allowed to spring back and the inner skin is pushed back to meet it. A few sutures are used to hold the cut edges together.
The technique is particularly recemmended for children suffering from phimosis, but it is also applicable to adults. You can see an excellent pictorial record of the procedure from the S.H.Ho Urology practice in Singapore here. If a patient suffering from haemophilia needs to be circumcised this is definitely the technique of choice.
One problem that has been associated with laser circumcision is an apparently 10% greater risk of infection. A Turkish team therefore combined child laser circumcision with cyanoacrylate tissue glue instead of sutures. The glue has an inherent anti-microbial activity. They found that this completely solved the problem. Their results were impressive: "complication rates were 1.4% for hematomas and 2.2% for hemorrhage using standard treatment and 0% in the combination group". Parents all expressed satisfaction with the cosmetic result.
ReferenceTahsin Gorgulu, Abdulkerim Olgun, Merve Torun, and Eksal Kargi, 2016. A fast, easy circumcision procedure combining a CO2 laser and cyanoacrylate adhesive: a non-randomized comparative trial. Int Braz J Urol. 42:113–117. Open Access - read it here.