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

WOW! A Roland Story!

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

It had been a while. I was beginning to worry something bad had happened to him...

Bender?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

They found you a job?

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do all the robots get to cop a feel?

Re:Bah

[Goldberg's Pants]

Maybe, but the ladies do need Penicillin afterwards...

Money Shot

[snoggeramus]

I suppose the robot injection to kill the tumor/cancer will be regarded as the money shot?

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?

[BiggerIsBetter]

I think the trick is to do it outside the USA, where FDA need not apply. The catch then being that the money isn't there to develop it....

Guess it depends if the goal is to a) get it out there and help people, or b) get paid to R&D shit (and oogle womens breasts, in this instance).

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:Thank god I'm a man

[Concerned Onlooker]

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.

Robotic system

[RDW]

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.

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?