This is very impressive and promising, from ZDNet:
An American doctor has developed a new surgery technique that enables surgeons to see tumors and other pathologies invisible with previous methods. This new ‘x-ray vision’ laparoscopic technology received the first prize for technical achievement at the 62nd annual meeting of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM). This new method incorporates specific filters in the endoscope light system, and surgeons can see ‘the tiny amounts of fluorescent light that all living human tissues give off when illuminated, a phenomenon called autofluorescence.’ In a first step, this technique will be used for the diagnosis of endometriosis, a potentially debilitating disease that affects 5.5 million women in the United States alone. As the system can be used to view virtually any organs, the research team is already focused on other applications, such as cancer detection. But read more…
This new system has been developed by Steven Palter, who’s been working for years to integrate high technology developments into surgical procedures and tools.
The system in question works in the following way:
This new technique enables surgeons to see tumors and other pathologies, including endometriosis not otherwise visible. In traditional laparoscopy, the telescope provides the same view as would be seen with the naked eye. In the new method, highly specific filters are incorporated into the light system and telescope so that surgeons can see the tiny amounts of fluorescent light that all living human tissues give off when illuminated, a phenomenon called “autofluorescence”.
Admittedly, there are about a half dozen words that I do not understand, but jokes aside, anything to get to tumors sooner is clearly a step in the right direction.
We might not have flying cars (technically we do) but science has advanced quite a bit…