Definitions:
Ablation: The surgical removal of body tissue.
Metastatic: The stage at which a tumor is malignant and may spread to other parts of the body.
Summary:
Dr. Eric Walser from Mayo Clinic, Florida, is one of the first physicians in the United States to destroy tumors outside of the brain through MRI-guided laser ablation. After learning the technique from Italian clinics, Walser started applying laser ablation on patients of his own. During the process, a needle is inserted into the patient’s tumor, and light energy is injected into it. All of this takes place inside an MRI machine to monitor the temperature, so that when the tumor is at the point of its destruction, the energy source is turned off. The process only takes a few minutes and has extremely minimal side effects.
Discussion:
I decided to pick this article to do a report on because I know that cancer is a disease that many people are concerned about. Therefore, I wanted to discover how cancer can be prevented in a less painful manner. Unlike previous treatments of tumors, laser ablation is extremely convenient because it is quick and contains almost no side effects. As time passes, hopefully most clinics in the world will be able to operate laser ablation on their patients. If this happens, cancer may become less and less of a threat.Questions:
Why aren’t all clinic centers using laser ablation for tumors outside of the brain?
Can laser ablation even destroy malignant tumors, dangerous tumors that spread quickly?
Sources:
Mayo Clinic. "Early Success With Laser That Destroys Tumors With Heat." ScienceDaily 14 October 2010. 14 October 2010 <http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101014131923.htm>.
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