Take a Visual Tour of CyberKnife Radiosurgery (jeffreifman.com) 36
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.
Looks ok. (Score:3, Interesting)
I read your blog, and it looks like they got it okay - it's scary, but you did it. Congratulations.
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Hi, Roger! Does this mean you still think that strong AI will never be possible?
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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..
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You wouldn't want it to diagnose your testicles as tumor, would you?
Amazing view of modern technology (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Amazing view of modern technology (Score:5, Interesting)
My wife had that but for anal canal cancer. I recognized the machine and steel door. Amazing surgery. A year later there is no sign of the tumor. Unfortunately she is in radiation and chemo again for tumors on her lymph glands in her chest. I'm hoping they get it and it doesn't spread. Chemo has been rough.
I hope after you get your treatments completed that there is no new ones elsewhere. Be sure to keep up on the follow up appointments. Good luck.
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Score:5, Funny!?
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the Republicans will never let us have it.
They'd say it is cheaper and more effective to use a gun, 'cuz with a gun you can better defend yourself from tumors.
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It's just sexconker. They forgot to post AC, again...
http://science.slashdot.org/co... [slashdot.org]
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"the Republicans will never let us have it."
No, the Republicans will just make it ridiculously expensive. But if it involves radiation, it will be the Democrats who won't let us have it.
There is still time! (Score:1)
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 ;)
MRI guided fiber conducted laser thermal ablation (Score:2)
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.
Stray radiation (Score:2)
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
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I thought they might be laser dots as well, but take a close look at all the pictures, and you can see purple random scattering on most of them to varying degrees, most intense on the ones with the machine in view. It's not the emission or reflection of light source(s) that I can see. Linear accelerators can apparently (just been reading up on it) also cause local activation of materials, though far less than proton and neutron beams, so it could potentially be recording very low level of decays from that
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It definitely doesn't look like radiation causing the dots. Looks like a diffraction laser grid. Radiation affecting cameras tends to look like coloured static covering the whole display - plus maybe vertical noise bars, picture tearing or distortion, or in video recordings picture breakup and instability..
Laser (Score:2)
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).
Radiation (Score:2)
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 work