Neurosurgeons Use MRI-Guided Lasers To Destroy Tumors

breadboy21 writes "In the seemingly perpetual battle to rid this planet of cancer, a team of neurosurgeons from Washington University are using a new MRI-guided high-intensity laser probe to 'cook' brain tumors that would otherwise be completely inoperable. According to Dr. Eric C. Leuthardt, this procedure 'offers hope to certain patients who had few or no options before,' with the laser baking the cancer cells deep within the brain while leaving the good tissue around it unmarred. The best part, however, is that this is already moving beyond the laboratory, with a pair of doctors at Barnes-Jewish Hospital using it successfully on a patient last month. Regrettably, just three hospitals at the moment are equipped with the Monteris AutoLITT device, but if we know anything about anything related to lasers, it'll be everywhere in no time flat."

Comments

Gamma Knife

[Garrett Fox]

Cool. This sounds like a variant on the "Gamma Knife" technology I'd heard about years ago, where many beams of some sort (microwaves? x-rays?) are sent through the patients' head from different angles so as to deliver massive harm to one spot only.

Unfortunately, we're seeing an advance in health care just in time for it to be taken over.