2 ms·

The issue with cancer is that it has the ability to metastasize - that is to travel to other parts of the body and grow there. Thus even if we completely remove

The issue with cancer is that it has the ability to metastasize - that is to travel to other parts of the body and grow there. Thus even if we completely remove that tumor that we see initially, but there could still be millions or billions of cancer cells that are now in other parts of the body but have not grown into tumors that are big enough to see yet. Also, in your scenario, depending on the type of cancer - you can actually spread cancer cells along the path of the needles when you remove them. In addition, some areas of the body make such surgery tricky because the cancer cells are very close and intertwined with critical structures. This can be especially true in brain cancers. But there are techniques like you suggest that are used in cancer. http://www.nature.com/nrc/journal/v14/n3/full/nrc3672.html http://www.nature.com/nrc/journal/v14/n3/full/nrc3672.html Thanks for taking the time to make a suggestion. Like many areas, one of the ways breakthroughs in medicine occur is that someone with a fresh perspective suggests something that the experts are too close to see. I hope that this will someday happen with cancer.

matthoiland 10y ago
A brilliant response without being condescending. Thank you.
tominous 10y ago
I'm not a doctor but have been dealing with cancer in the family. I think we will soon see much more use of fine-needle techniques in cancer treatment in novel ways. Perhaps the next big thing will be an oil-and-gas engineer adapting drilling, guiding and visualisation technologies to the very small scale. Directly killing the cancer cells is often futile because you can't kill them all, but we could also use this tech to: * take samples of the the tumour and its microenvironment to analyse and guide treatment * inject biological agents into tumours (e.g. T-Vec) * inject "broad-spectrum" immunotherapies (ipilimumab, various cytokines) which may be too dangerous to use systemically * insert radioactive grains or auger targets as an adjunct to enhance immunotherapy * apply local electroporation to enhance the uptake of chemotherapy and breakdown of tumour cells, again to enhance the immune response (e.g. ImmunoPulse) * take samples in order to grow personalised treatments in the lab for later injection (e.g. dendritic cell therapy) * provide safer options for dealing with complications like pericardial effusions.

matthoiland 10y ago

A brilliant response without being condescending. Thank you.

tominous 10y ago

I'm not a doctor but have been dealing with cancer in the family. I think we will soon see much more use of fine-needle techniques in cancer treatment in novel ways. Perhaps the next big thing will be an oil-and-gas engineer adapting drilling, guiding and visualisation technologies to the very small scale. Directly killing the cancer cells is often futile because you can't kill them all, but we could also use this tech to: * take samples of the the tumour and its microenvironment to analyse and guide treatment * inject biological agents into tumours (e.g. T-Vec) * inject "broad-spectrum" immunotherapies (ipilimumab, various cytokines) which may be too dangerous to use systemically * insert radioactive grains or auger targets as an adjunct to enhance immunotherapy * apply local electroporation to enhance the uptake of chemotherapy and breakdown of tumour cells, again to enhance the immune response (e.g. ImmunoPulse) * take samples in order to grow personalised treatments in the lab for later injection (e.g. dendritic cell therapy) * provide safer options for dealing with complications like pericardial effusions.