Surgery Using A Sunlight Scalpel

Makarand writes "Research conducted by Israeli doctors has shown that it is possible to use concentrated sunlight instead of lasers to perform surgery, providing a safe and low cost alternative to laser treatment. In their experiments sunlight was transported into the operating room from outside using a system of optical fibers. The concentrated rays - containing several watts of energy - were then used in the experimental surgery conducted on rats." Here is Wired's similar story.

Comments

Confirmation

[kinnell]

I can verify that this is indeed feasible. I have myself performed exploratory operations on a number of ants and other selected insects using concentrated sunlight.

Re:Confirmation

[cpeterso]

When I was a kid, I attempted numerous cryogenic experiments on bees. I froze them in my freezer and would then try to wake them using sunlight or the microwave. Here are my results:

Bee in microwave 0-5 seconds: no change in behavior
Bee in microwave 5-10 seconds: rapid movement
Bee in microwave 10+ seconds: no movement/game over

I now regret my mad science experiments (there were many others), but at least I can share the scientific results with others. Let not those bees die in vain...

Cloudy days.

[Spudley]

All fine and dandy... until the sun goes behind a cloud right at the critical moment! :-o

"Oops"

[rylin]

Now that everyone's used to the BOFH, let me introduce the BSFH (Bastard Surgeon From Hell)..

Blaming someone's critical conditions on sunflares, anyone? ;)

Are the lasers a significant cost?

[TheLink]

Just curious - are the lasers a significant cost or are they outweighed by the costs of the people controling and maintaining the laser, and the systems involved in assisting the control (intensity, focus, width etc). Would a consistent light beam be necessary for surgery and if it is, would maintaining the consistency of a sunlight beam be cheaper?

Personally I believe this is just a "party trick".

If you don't have access to a laser, are there compelling reasons to pick the sunlight system over a scalpel system?

That was my idea!

[Gyl]

Of course I wasn't going to do surgery with it. I was thinking take the Keck telescope (10 m diameter), aim it at the sun, attach fiber optic cable at the focus, cut down a forest (being a gentle example of what to do :)

A quick google search reveals high power lasers of 100 W another quick search shows: ~250 W/m^2 as solar power reaching earth's surface. A circle of diameter 10 m, 78.5 m^2. Giving almost 20,000 watts. hehehe. Assume you loose half of that in mechanics, it's still 10,000 watts!

Several watts?

[JUSTONEMORELATTE]

Granted the article is light on details (no pun intended) but why does the power source need to be the Sun? Why not use the same combining/collimating /focus method but draw the power from one or more conventional incandescent lamps?
Yes, I realize that Sun == free, and electicity != free. Howsabout the Solar version for subsaharan Africa where reliable power is rare but sunlight is not, and we'll take the 1/10th-the-price-of-a-laser incandescent one here in North America where the opposite is true.

--

suitable for all laser applications?

[iggymanz]

But can we have sharks with frickin' sunlight concentrating devices attached to their heads?

Re:Danger Wil Robinson!

[reverseengineer]

Is this sounding like a good way to get skin cancer to anyone else?

No, because the idea is to aim the beam at tissues that you want to destroy, such as tumor cells. Ideally, the targeted cells will be vaporized, so whether or not UV light induces mutations in them is a moot point.

I do personally love the ironic possibility of using a beam of focused sunlight to destroy a melanoma caused by too much exposure to sunlight, though.