Slashdot Mirror
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."
It had been a while. I was beginning to worry something bad had happened to him...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
First breast cancer cells, next, the world.
They found you a job?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Why do all the robots get to cop a feel?
Maybe, but the ladies do need Penicillin afterwards...
I suppose the robot injection to kill the tumor/cancer will be regarded as the money shot?
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).
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I volunteer as human pilot. can't trust computer these days.
Curcumin,a spice found in turmeric, can help shut down a protein that plays a key role in the spread of cancers. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-365491/How-curry-help-cancer-bay.html
Don't worry you can always beat off to plastic women with fake boobs from the porn you get off bittorrent, like the rest of us slashdotters.
I guess by now a number of people would bet that the robot will soon be starring in a sci-fi/horror movie, called something like, "Breast Fest '78".
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
I can't wait to see what happens when the machine finds silicone, pops it like a zit, finds a false positive (or a real positive near the implant), then sets the poor woman's chest on fire (or makes it explode)
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Perhaps this isn't a good time to mention it, but you should know that men can get breast cancer, too. Obviously it's not as common. Male breast cancers account for 1% of all breast cancers.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
There's a better description of the technology from the lab involved here:
http://rams.umd.edu/html/news.shtml#nihr01
'The goal of this project is to develop a novel teleoperated robotic system with haptic (sense of touch) feedback capability that will provide accurate feedback to the physician performing Breast biopsy (Bx) and/or Radio-frequency ablation (RFA) under continuous Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Some of the primary challenges of this project include: development of a compact robot manipulator, actuation and sensing that is MRI compatible, efficient use of MRI image sequences to guide the Bx needle and/or RFA probe accurately using adaptive control schemes that incorporate soft-tissue properties as the needle/probe traverses the tissue, and an intuitive user-interface which will provide real-time MRI images and Bx needle/RFA probe tracking with respect to the tumor (target) location.'
You don't have to wait for any cells to grow to make use of the biopsy (it can be assessed directly), but obviously a pathologist will have to examine the sample under a microscope before a treatment decision is made.
This is probably the most tasteless thought that has ever popped into my head upon reading a slashdot article, but my first thought was an ED-209 style robot that would go around blowing womens breasts off. Sure, it's intention would be to do biopsies and only remove cancerous cells, but it would reason that if breasts were totally destroyed then they couldn't get cancer in the first place, and ED-209 was never the smartest of robots...
"Man" might be pushing it.
'a';DROP TABLE users; SELECT * FROM DATA WHERE name LIKE '%'... if you're reading this, it didn't work.
Is there anything they can't do?
HAND.
You can't treat post-traumatic stress with penicillin.
I hate printers.
You can't treat post-traumatic stress with penicillin.
Nor did I realize that penicillin is used to treat uncontrollable humiliation-based laughing.
'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).
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?
(Insert tube.)
/.is against patents.
I read your post and went and tagged it "boobies" just for you.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
So all these alien anal probing is really just alien robot practicing removal of colorectal cancer!
This sounds like something that, if it works, would apply to many forms of cancer. Is it just because breast cancer research is popular in funding circles or is there something specific to breast cancer to limit the applicability of the technique to breast cancer tumours?
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
The adoption of the DaVinci surgical robot. Right now they're all human controlled but I can see a point in the near term future where AI could be used in such robots.
All the pieces are or will soon be in place. We've got the advance scanning technology, and the robotics.
The same thing is happening with cars. They've gotten pretty advanced, some are even truly drive by wire. GPS is also evolving too. The biggest issue is coordinating maps with the lat/long coordinates.
And the DARPA Grand Challenges, the first one wasn't so successful but the Urban Challenge was fantastic.
So you have to ask, how long before the technology for an autonomous vehicle can be adapted to the consumer market. I'd say less than five years.
So an autonomous surgical robot isn't such a far stretch either.
Logan's Run.
... you have 20 seconds to comply.
That's what I would have thought. It's good to hear that it is also being tried on other types of cancer.
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop