Imaging and Surgery

Cancer takes its name from the Latin for crab; so now imagine trying to cut a crab from a block of gelatin while wearing a blindfold.  You would feel around, trying to distinguish hard material from soft and hope you excised the entire shape.  This is similar to how a surgeon now removes a malignant tumor.  Leave a little, and the tumor grows back.  Professor John Frangioni, at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, has developed a better way of seeing where to cut. He uses targeted contrasting agents (e.g. antibodies known to bind to breast cancer proteins, with fluorescent labels) and three cameras on a boom (one for visible light and two for near infrared), he was able to distinguish between normal and tumor tissue by different colored light.  This development has been licensed to GE Healthcare and now is in clinical trials.  MORE

Image Credit:  Technology Review