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Crab Robot Helps Remove Stomach Cancer
redletterdave writes "Singaporean researchers have created a miniature robot with a pincer and a hook that can remove early-stage stomach cancers without leaving any scars. Mounted on an endoscope, it enters the patient's gut through the mouth. It has a pincer to hold cancerous tissues, and a hook that slices them off and coagulates blood to stop bleeding. With the help of a tiny camera attached to the endoscope, the surgeon sees what's inside the gut and controls the robotic arms remotely while sitting in front of a monitor screen. The robot has already helped remove early-stage stomach cancers in five patients in Hong Kong and India, using a fraction of the time normally taken in open and keyhole surgeries that put patients at higher risk of infection and leave behind scars."
So it's a cancer that removes cancer?
Yo, dawg...
"This thing does science so hard, you say, 'I've never seen that much science.'" -Sam
Welcome to the future! It's creepy, terrifying, and bizarre. And no flying cars.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
How can you write an article about a cancer-killing crab robot and not include a picture of said robo-crab?
That is not a robot. It is a tele-operated tool, related to a waldo (A waldo mimics one's movements precisely - See Heinlein's story Waldo). Call it a waldo, just to keep it simple. For example, a powered suit worn by a person is a very complex waldo.
A robot is not completely operated by a human. It can be partially so; the Mars rovers are robots that do what they are told, but interpret the commands with their own programming, as they are 45 light minutes away and cannot be controlled directly.
A robot has it's own "brain". It independently operates in its environment by its own perception and judgement.
A claw on a stick is not a robot. Words are important. These things have names, and confusing the terminology muddles communication.
That's what it is, a remote tool controlled by the surgeon. Not a robot which would work independently.
So that's where crabby patties come from.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Re:Thats 4.5 minutes to 14 minutes away. depending on whether Mars is in opposition or not.
and thought "Great, yet another shiny Apple iDevice"
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
Modern endoscopes used for colonoscopy and gastroscopy already have small pincers at the end. These can cut off, and retrieve, cancer polyps in the colon -- polyps being the pre-stage to colon cancer. However, these polyps are tiny. It sounds to me like the new device described in the article is mostly like a larger variation of these pincers.
Too bad that this "crab" device was not available seven months ago when I went through major surgery to remove a small tumour from my colon. It would have made a huge difference to me. The operation took six hours, I had a painful week at the hospital (partly because the epidural failed at one point) and over a month's absence from work. I am left with a huge scar down the entirety of my abdomen.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
The Globe and Mail is also running this story and they included a picture of the device, just like every other site that ran the Reuters story. But thank you slashdot for continuing to link to shitty IBT stories, because I had never seen a crab before.
Endoscopic surgery can be better or worse, but the bigger thing is to make sure you have a good surgeon, either way. For stomach cancer, there is some variation in approaches (what chemo follow-up or even pre-surgery, etc...), and I don't think there's anything conclusive on which manner of surgery is better in terms of open v. endoscopic.
That being said, there is divergent data on what procedure to follow in terms of the number of nodes to remove. Radical lymphadonectomies are almost certainly better, but there is data on both sides and a sizable number of people believe that removing only a very few nodes is indicated. (This is skewed by the fact that people tend to be lazy, that kind of operation takes a lot more work, and conclusive data supporting it didn't exist for a long time and some would argue still does not). Obviously, check the research yourself if you are competent to read the studies, or just find someone at the top of the field in terms of ability, rather than reputation, and do whatever they say.
(This is hard. Look for someone who does a lot of operations that are really really hard. Huge experience in stomach cancer is great, but can be hard to find depending on where you are in the world. Someone who is great at pancreatic cancer surgery may also do well.)
.... causing hundreds or thousands of cancer cells to be released into the patient's bloodstream from each blob of cancer tissue that it slices away from the stomach lining. But then most surgical techniques that don't additionally remove a fair amount of the non-cancerous surrounding tissue as well as the cancer tissue, tend to also release a bunch of cancer cells into the bloodstream where they can wander around to find a new spot to set up camp.
Better hope the followup radiation and/or chemo finishes off those little campers.
nobody has yet to mention here that the term cancer is related to the crab (constellation) as the first cancer reported removed from a person was remarked to look "like a crab".
Except for the first comment...
I'm hoping your journal is...humorous. Otherwise, you're just as batshit crazy as he is.
Hurrah!
Their they're doing there hair.
I read that backwards. I thought it said, "Stomach cancer robots help remove crabs." That would be useful to me right now.
Silence is a state of mime.
Craaabbbb robots
Craaabbbb robots
Taste like crab,
operate like robot.
People around the world get cancer
Doctors around the world charge exorbitant fees to treat cancers, often resulting in cancer patients dying from, you guess it, cancer
At least Singapore is doing something right - they develop a device which can cut off the cancer clusters
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Kojima needs to put this in the next Metal Gear game. "It's... some kind of demon!"
This is a pet peeve of mine. This is not a robot. This is not an autonomous device. This is a remote control device.
Can it cure "the crabs", or will that cause Recursionitus*?
* which also causes Recursionitus**
** which also causes Recursionitus***
*** which also causes Recursionitus*
Table-ized A.I.
Did anyone else read that as 'crap robot'? Guys?
"You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein
I lost my wife to stomach cancer.
Although this would not have saved her (she had traditional surgery to have most of her stomach removed), one thing I noticed through the entire journey was that the research was geared towards more common cancers, like breast and colon. I'm happy to see that treatments of other cancers still being pursued.
I'm fairly certain this kind of thing was seen in "The microscopic mission" and similar idea with the film "Innerspace"
That said, this is rather cool. Pretty soon you'll see video-gamer types paired with doctors to do stuff like this, where the gamer gets everything setup and the doctor does the surgical work.
Why not Zoidberg? He's cheaper than some boloney robot!
SCIENCE is FAILING us! Oh, wait...
http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
GP was saying that unlike doctors around the world who charge their cancer patients arms and legs with false promises that often lead to the patients dying from their cancers anyway, the folks in that tiny island state (Singapore) developed a device which can remove cancer cluster
Of course the device won't magically cure cancer, but at least they can snipped out the cancer cells and remove them out of the patient's body - something like taking out the garbage instead of leaving them inside
"...it enters the patient's gut through the mouth."
<involuntary visual of it leaving like a chest-burster>
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
I AM NOT LETTING A FUCKING CRAB crawl into my stomach unless it is bearing a payload of melted butter and maybe a bit of green onion.
The link in the summary only shows a real crab photo. Clearly this device is not a real crab. Anyone else curious to know what the ACTUAL device looks like can see in this other article, first google search link.
http://www.dawn.com/2012/02/02/experts-build-crab-like-robot-to-remove-stomach-cancer.html
A miniature friendly crab attacks the tumours weak spot for MASSIVE DAMAGE
I know someone who has late stage stomach cancer, and this technique could have made a difference had it been available earlier.... he is now sitting in hospital, and I feel for his family. I wish they could maybe make this information and techniques available quicker to other doctors. Why the hell did google ever stop its medical movement??? At least maybe when facebook gets involved, they wont stop until it is reality.
Who will help bring about the information real time to doctors first???