能自动寻找肿瘤的智能手术刀
A so-called "smart scalpel" - a computerized fiber-optic laser device - is being developed to analyze cells and determine instantly if they‘re cancerous, helping patients avoid additional biopsies.
Sandia National Laboratories with help from the University of New Mexico medical school is working on the dime-sized device.
It‘s not actually a scalpel - it would be used in conjunction with a surgeon‘s scalpel. The device contains a microscopic spectrometer that analyzes protein density in a cell and a tiny vacuum that sucks cells through microchip-connected sensors for analysis during surgery.
Fiber-optics feed the information into a computer to provide "instant feedback to the surgeon," Sandia physicist Paul Gourley said.
"It‘s like an instantaneous lab report on a biopsy," Gourley said by phone from Minneapolis, where he intended to present a paper Friday before the American Physical Society.
But it likely won‘t be put to practical use any time soon, Dr. LaMar McGinnis, an Atlanta-based senior medical consultant for the American Cancer Society, said Thursday.
"This sounds very exciting on the surface, but transferring this from a laboratory situation to a clinical operating room situation is a long reach," he said.
"While this could limit the amount of tissue necessary to be removed and preserve function, and probably increase the quality of life, it may not improve the cure of cancer unless combined with" other things, such as chemotherapy and radiation, he added.
Gourley said the device hasn‘t been tested yet on living tissue, but researchers have cultured the cells and flowed them through the device.
"We‘ve studied the device using normal and cancerous brain cells and have shown that we can distinguish between the two," he said.
About some of the skepticism that‘s been expressed, Gourley acknowledged that "some technical hurdles" need to be cleared, adding: "but those are largely engineering considerations - there‘s no reason that can‘t be done.", 百拇医药
Sandia National Laboratories with help from the University of New Mexico medical school is working on the dime-sized device.
It‘s not actually a scalpel - it would be used in conjunction with a surgeon‘s scalpel. The device contains a microscopic spectrometer that analyzes protein density in a cell and a tiny vacuum that sucks cells through microchip-connected sensors for analysis during surgery.
Fiber-optics feed the information into a computer to provide "instant feedback to the surgeon," Sandia physicist Paul Gourley said.
"It‘s like an instantaneous lab report on a biopsy," Gourley said by phone from Minneapolis, where he intended to present a paper Friday before the American Physical Society.
But it likely won‘t be put to practical use any time soon, Dr. LaMar McGinnis, an Atlanta-based senior medical consultant for the American Cancer Society, said Thursday.
"This sounds very exciting on the surface, but transferring this from a laboratory situation to a clinical operating room situation is a long reach," he said.
"While this could limit the amount of tissue necessary to be removed and preserve function, and probably increase the quality of life, it may not improve the cure of cancer unless combined with" other things, such as chemotherapy and radiation, he added.
Gourley said the device hasn‘t been tested yet on living tissue, but researchers have cultured the cells and flowed them through the device.
"We‘ve studied the device using normal and cancerous brain cells and have shown that we can distinguish between the two," he said.
About some of the skepticism that‘s been expressed, Gourley acknowledged that "some technical hurdles" need to be cleared, adding: "but those are largely engineering considerations - there‘s no reason that can‘t be done.", 百拇医药