Undergoing diagnostic testing and eventual surgery to remove cancerous tissue and tumors is a traumatic event for any patient. This trauma is amplified when, following the removal of the tumor, it grows back. To reduce the frequency of this, researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center have developed a technology called surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) which allows surgeons to distinguish malignant cells from healthy cells. This technology allows the surgeons to see more of the unhealthy cells during the surgical procedure.
Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) cancers are the hardest to detect and this technology, it is believed, will help raise survival rates. The handheld device that resembles a laser pointer helps surgeon identify tumorous cells and allows the surgeon to remove them. To highlight the cancerous cells, the patient is injected with nanoparticles the day prior to the surgery; these nanoparticles are drawn to the tumor cells and are then highlighted with the laser and can be removed.
Laser imaging technology also help physicians detect breast cancer through photoacoustic methods that are seen as a more promising alternative to mammography. This image-capturing technique doesn’t require the patient be subjected to ionizing radiation. Photoacoustic technologies illuminate the breast tissue with short, high-energy pulses of light allowing the radiologist to see “concentrations of chromophores” which occur when malignant tissue and cells are present.
High energy laser diodes generate the photoacoustic waves that allow the physicians to detect specific substances and their concentrations of malignant cells.
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