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How the technique works. Left: Light enters the tissue sample and is scattered (blue arrows). From above, ultrasound is focused into a small area inside the tissue. The ultrasound shifts the frequency of any light that passed through that area ever so slightly, changing its color. The color-shifted light (green) is then recorded. Right: The recorded light is sent back to retrace its steps to the small region where the ultrasound was focused¿which means the light itself is focused on that area. (Caltech / June 29, 2012) |
Can doctors perform surgery without cutting through skin?
It sounds like something out of a comic book, but a Caltech professor and his students hope to make the medical innovation a reality.
The procedure is done using a powerful light that can reach a few inches into tissue and can focus on an area as deep as two and a half milimeters. That is more than double the previous limit for focusing on an area inside the body.
Changhuei Yang, a Caltech engineering professor, said a laser could make a clean, precision cut.
"By generating a tight laser-focus spot deep in tissue, we can potentially use that as a laser scalpel that leaves the skin unharmed,” Yang said in a statement.
Imagine shining a strong flashlight into the body. That’s what the technique is like, according to Caltech, and it could also help doctors detect cancer early by finding tumors inside the body.
Two Caltech graduate students, Ying Min Wang and Benjamin Judkewitz, are leading the study.
"It's a very new way to image into tissue, which could lead to a lot of promising applications,” Wang said in a statement.
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-- Tiffany Kelly, Times Community News
