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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
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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.
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.
Hurrah!
Their they're doing there hair.
Then, once the stomach cancer robots get rid of the crabs, we simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the cancer robots.
"This thing does science so hard, you say, 'I've never seen that much science.'" -Sam
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