A Robot To Destroy Breast Cancer Cells

Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers at the University of Maryland are developing a robot able to detect and destroy breast cancer cells in a single session. After a tumor is located on an MRI, the robot will perform a biopsy of the breast while the patient is inside the scanner. 'If the biopsy displays cancerous cells, the robot will then insert a probe into the breast until it reaches the tumor. The probe will then burn the cancer cells until they are destroyed.' This looks great, but the researchers have only built a prototype. After they refine this robot, they'll need to go through clinical trials and obtain FDA approval. So this is not a robot that will appear on the medical market before several years."

Comments

I'm curious, why does it take so long?

[pembo13]

If something is promising, can't the process be accelerated (not rushed)? Get a team together to build a better prototype, at the same time have another team build some bio models to test the tool on. That part might take three to five months. While they are doing that, a third team could start lining potentials up for clinical trial. Another eight or so months doing daily trials and refinements. Basically, my ignorance of the field doesn't allow me to understand why it takes more than a year to get something promising into practice (if it ends up actually working).

Re:I'm curious, why does it take so long?

[dbIII]

You getting a little bit confused by a scam that is getting played on the mainly American medical market. As an example, when the cervical cancer vaccine was developed and fuly tested in Australia with Australian taxpayers money you still ended up with it being a lot more expensive in the USA with the usual excuse of R&D and FCC compliance costs. Guess what, US consumers pay more for it than anybody else in earth because in that case you are paying for what in that extreme case is completely mythical extra costs (certification for the US market was done with Australian money). Compliance costs are nowhere near what is often claimed and in terms of actual expenditure it's going to be cheaper to develop stuff where there is infrastructure.

The FDA is often depicted as a bogeyman stopping progress instead of an instrument of government there to make it harder to kill babies with poisoned milk. All developed countries have the equivalent, and while some may do a lot better I really think the FDA is a long way from being the obstacle it is claimed to be - but that's looking at it from the other side of an ocean.

Re:how would this possibly work?

[RDW]

'If surgeons can't stick a probe into a breast cancer tumor and just burn it today then why could they in a year or two? Often times there has to be a masectomy because...well because you can't just stick a probe in and burn it or remove it any other way really. If a robot can supposedly do it, why can't aren't all surgeons using this method right now?'

Because it takes large clinical trials to establish if this method is as effective as (e.g.) excising the lump by surgery ('lumpectomy') followed by radiation treatment, just as it previously took a large trial to show that lumpectomy could be as effective as mastectomy in many situations. The 'burning' technique used here (RFA) is one of several experimental therapies being studied for clinical effectiveness, as described in this (now slightly dated) article:

http://www.cancernews.com/articles/breastcancertherapies.htm

And no, a robot isn't required for RFA (the system being built at the University of Maryland is really a surgeon-controlled remote manipulator with haptic feedback and live MRI imaging).

Robocopafeel

[nameendingwith]

While "roboticcopafeel" does sound like that latest toy that all parents should go out and buy for their children, I suggest "robocopafeel" would be a much better pun. In fact, aren't they making that into the next Robocop movie?