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Take a Visual Tour of CyberKnife Radiosurgery (jeffreifman.com)
reifman writes: On June 3rd, I had brain surgery to treat a benign tumor called a meningioma. I knew ahead of time that the surgeon wouldn't be able to remove the entire tumor – its geography extended from my cavernous sinus to the pituitary gland to the left hemisphere of the brain and to my brain stem. I also needed CyberKnife radiation therapy to attempt to mutate the remaining tumor's DNA to stop its growth. Come meet Lenore, my robotic radiosurgeon.
I read your blog, and it looks like they got it okay - it's scary, but you did it. Congratulations.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Lenore would be a badass name for a sexbot.
Jeff,
Thank you for the description of your treatment and the equipment that was used. It's amazing where medical technology has come to and the hope that it can provide.
Last year, my son was treated for stage three non-Hodgkin s lymphoma with just chemotherapy and (thankfully) no need for surgery.
Good luck and I hope for complete remission.
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the Republicans will never let us have it.
No thanks, cool tho
Oh buzz off Deepak Chopra.
The machines are helping to save lives, for now. I suspect they are just biding their time until we give them legs before they turn on us. #TheEndIsNigh ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
MRI guided fiber conducted laser thermal ablation is also an option these days (just started gaining wider use in the last 2 years).
It's a technique that can target small areas with great precision, not too good for massive or diffuse tumor growths, but it excels at "string of pearls" problems.
Amazing machine and staff. Slightly worrying are the radiation spots on the CCD of his digital camera for the shots of the machine and the treatment room, which makes me wonder how much dosage the technicians who operate it pick up, and also how intense the beam is when the aperture is opened up.
I can definitely sympathise with the fear of confinement. I had a head MRI a few weeks back, and it was in a small mobile scanner. While I'm not claustrophobic, it was definitely confining, and this process where you're directly restrained looks like it could be really terrifying if you can't deal with confinement.
Hi, Roger! Does this mean you still think that strong AI will never be possible?
...standing "on yon drear and rigid bier"?
Silliness aside, the advances in this kind of technology are incredible. That said, the greatest advancement will be when we don't need that kind of equipment because what it treats simply doesn't exist any more. Not a near-future goal, obviously!
Slightly worrying are the radiation spots on the CCD of his digital camera for the shots of the machine and the treatment room
To me it looks like the laser grid used to position the device in place.
The most tell-tale sign: the dots are a primary color (blue). There's no reason why why stray radiation would affect only the photo detecting pixel that happen to be behind one specific colour of the CCD's bayer filter.
which makes me wonder how much dosage the technicians who operate it pick up,
They work with the machine everyday, so indeed there could be some slight exposure risks over time.
That's why everyone working in radiology and nuclear medicine must carry radio-dosimeters that help determine if some worker has been getting more radiation that should be allowed.
So in practice, technician don't get too much radiation thanks to controls in place.
and also how intense the beam is when the aperture is opened up.
Not much actually.
That's the whole idea behind the technique:
The rays aren't very strong so they aren't very likely to cause random damage on their path.
But, the treatment is designed in such way that all the rays end up going through the same point.
And even if 1 single ray isn't a big deal, all the rays end-ing up at the same point have a cumuliative effect and a destructive effect on that point.
That's what can be seen on the screen-shot of the computer interface:
the software computes a treatment in such a way that all the delicate structures (like brain tissue) don't get much exposure, but that the tumor gets fired at over and over again from every possible angle and ends up getting quite a big dose from everywhere and that kills the tumor.
this process where you're directly restrained looks like it could be really terrifying if you can't deal with confinement.
Now that's the researcher in me talking:
I do hope that over time, thanks to fast actuators and complex visual tracking, the robot would be able to follow the patient around, instead of need the patient firmly fixed.
Such approach start to appear in other fields. Some of the robotic surgery machine (the one holding scalpel) are able to track heart motion.
From the referential that the surgeon gets in the 3D display, the heart seems immobile.
But not because the heart is stoped (as in other surgery with extra-corporeal circulation bypass), but because the whole robot (including effectors and camera) are moving back and forth in the same rythme as the heart.
A radiotherapy robot is heavy, so its much more complicated (and would require big processing power ton constantly be able to determin if the current angle in sight is sage or not). But maybe some day someone will find a solution.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The dots in the screen look like laser dots to me,
That's what I think too.
Most of the rays used in radiology and nuclear medecins are invisible to the human eye. Therefore, so the human operator can see what they are aiming the device at, most devices tend to use laser grid for the positionning steps.
(e.g.: to line up the mask with the device)
That would also explain why all the dots are the same primary colours (unlikely if they where due to stray radiation).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Thanks for sharing, Jeff. Having just started RT myself, I know what it feels like to "wear" the mask and ironically that is what keeps me awake at night, not the treatment itself. The mask doesn't look like a big deal, but indeed when you're lying there all by yourself, it's a completely different story. Thirty minutes per session is a looong time. Well done! (Mine are 10 minutes, but I have to go 30 times. I'll either be a zen master or completely messed up by the end.)
I wonder what can be done to make you feel more comfortable when you're alone. As you mentioned, physical contact makes all the difference, thus maybe a "realistic" physical robot that is remote controlled by a human (e.g., girlfriend)? I bet that just having a cat sit on your chest that you can pet would make a huge difference too. We need to start engineering radiation resistant cats (or just stick them in a leaden box, then they can't escape either).
Good luck with everything!
No, consciousness is an emergent by-product of organic brains.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Consciousness is a dynamic synthesis of a totality information matrix based on the brains neural network, a type of universal machine or Turing Machine. Since the brain at its atomic scale foundation is an ordered quantum machine you are both actually right.. The quantum woo does not make building a working strong AI impossible, but it is a very hard problem. - I know because I've been working on building one since 1990..
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..