Monday 24 September 2012

Robotic surgery for treating cancer?

I'm assuming you are not talking about a single solid tumor, but rather one where the tumor is loose and is distributed throughout the tissue, or has metastasized



I guess the answer is you could, but it would be one amazing machine. This robot would have to examine each individual cell and destroy it based on what you could sense about the surface properties. Identifying cancer cells on the basis of the proteins and glycosyl (carbohydrate) molecules on the cell surface is not embodied in a reliable way in a touch sensor. Cancer can manifest lots of such patterns and it could quite easily be that if you looked at healthy cells, they look very similar. Cancer cells don't have an obvious sign they are always holding out saying 'im cancer'...



Then there is the structure of tumors. For instance glioma is one of the most difficult brain cancers you can have. The glioma cells push out axons - they can be quite long. Its hard to imagine a robot that could find that in a brain without tearing up all the neural connections. In prostate cancers - one of the most common cancers in men, the cells are embedded in the tissue surrounded by necessary and healthy cells.



This is why chemicals and nano structures are the most commonly pursued means of combating cancer; they can enter into cells that are embedded in solid organs. Differentiating the cancer cells from other sorts of cells in vivo is a pretty hard problem - some antibodies are given as a possible help there, but they are not reliable.



This blog post is a pretty up to date summary of where we are



http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/personalized-medicine-vs-evolution/

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