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Cancer Cells Detected Using $400 Digital Camera
fergus07 writes "Researchers have detected oral cancer cells using a fiber-optic cable and an off-the-shelf Olympus E-330 camera worth $400. The work by Rice University biomedical engineers and researchers from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center could improve access to diagnostic imaging tools in many parts of the world where these expensive resources are scarce. In the tests, a common fluorescent dye was used to make cell nuclei glow brightly and images were taken using the tip of the fiber-optic bundle attached to the camera. The distorted nuclei, which indicate cancerous and pre-cancerous cells, could then be distinguished on the camera's LCD monitor."
A divining rod can detect water, too. What matters is the false positive and false negative rate.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
... better get on this to make sure that this technology can't be used in the U.S. otherwise costs might go down. Similar to how we can't import drugs: medically, if it's cheap, it's dangerous.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
That's so cheap! Every hospital in the world can afford that! People can be screened for cancer cheaply at the tiniest sign. We'll catch it faster so we'll treat more people early! And research will be that bit easier!
it's under construction
Soo... a $400 camera and a $10,000 fiber optic cable?
Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep someone alive for another few days (if at all), drugged out of their mind is just a waste of resources.
Perhaps for /you/ it is, but what about that person? What about that person's family? See thats the nice thing about freedom is that you shouldn't have to pay for what I want and I don't dictate what you want. Of course our government fucked us over long ago removing any true economic freedom....
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
... or rather, was, until I discovered how boring staring down a microscope every day actually was, jumped ship, and rejoined the land of the living. What working as a pathology resident did teach me, however, is just how fucking complicated cancer diagnosis is and how incredibly smart pathologists are. These guys have 5 straight years of pushing pushing glass and reading textbooks, and often have a completely encyclopedic knowledge of disease and cell morphology. Absolutely useless in the real world, and only useful when you are staring down a microscope trying to come up with a diagnosis.
Certainly the haphazard arrangement of cells and dysmorphic nuclei/prominent nucleoli can be one indication that something is malignant, but lets be honest: if some guy took a sample of your nasal mucosa and used his 400 dollar camera to determine that something up your nose was cancer, would that really be enough for you go to: "Alright. Sign me up for terribly invasive and debilitating surgery. That's enough proof for me." As a point of care screening tool to limit unecessary biopsies? Maybe, but it would really have to be quite sensitive (rules out appropriately). For true diagnostic purposes? No way.
A proper diagnosis can often involve multiple chemical stains and immunostains, and for high stakes diagnosis like cancer, often involves having multiple pathologists at multiple institutions look at the slides. So anything that offers some quick solution like this is disingenuous.
By the time the FDA approves this device for diagnostic use, it will be a $10,000 camera ann it will need to be operated by a licensed radiologist.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
We need to reduce the cost of health care so we don't need insurance to pay for those things. Does no one else find it incredibly backwards that you would use insurance for such trivial things? Chances are you wouldn't use your homeowners insurance to pay for something as silly as a small board that needed replacing, or for a bit of touch-up paint, but yet we seem to think we need health insurance to pay for those things?
It's a question of should *I* have to pay for your insistence that you be granted the freedom to spend a disgusting amount of money to extend one life by a trivial amount of time, especially when others are dying much younger, for want of much less expensive care...
If we had a free economy that wouldn't ever be a problem, but instead we have doctors who are too afraid to compete, regulations which screw doctors out of actually -being- with their patents and helping them and instead they have to fill out paperwork for government/insurance/etc. If we would let the free market really work, we'd see an increase in the amount of life saving cures, a decrease in the cost of health care so you wouldn't use insurance to pay for tiny little things, with that gone then insurance would go down because not everyone is going to develop cancer or some major thing and need to use that much insurance, rather than today someone uses insurance on something as silly as a scraped knee.
Fix the economy and you've pretty much fixed health care.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I think he might just be from someplace like Europe or Canada which pays for the cost of health care. In America, you'd be correct though.