When surgeons dig around inside of you trying to cut out a tumour , they ’re actually depart off of pre - op information to regain the tumor . An electroscalpel , commingle with a mass spectrometer , willlet them map cancerous cellsin realtime .
The thing about electroscalpels is that they put off gaeous ions , which , besides being something you should n’t breath in , it so bump are perfect for being study viamass spectrometry — a method of identifying molecules based on their mass and change . A spectrometer pulls in the smoke from the electroscalpel , and analysis of the chemical substance sample happens almost instantly , give up surgeons to , in near substantial time , “ draw and quarter a map and say this part is salubrious liver , that is connective tissue , this is adipose tissue , that is cancer ” according Zoltán Takáts , a Justus - Liebig University professor who came up with the idea .
Like any other technology - driven medical advance when it descend to Crab , it ’s not tinny to follow out : The electrosurgery setup alone is 8 grand , while the hatful spectrometry frame-up is $ 120,000 . I wonder how much the first medical tricorder is gon na cost . [ Technology Review ]
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