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Comment by skmurphy | Hacker News Reader

Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) occupies a intermediate position in accuracy / skin depth for soft tissue between ultrasound and MRI

Optically pumped magnetometers (OPM) approaches SQUID level accuracy without need for supercooled device, can be worn or used as a contact sensor like ultrasound.

LoRA long range (10km +) low power sub-gigahertz radio frequency protocol useful for battery powered IoT devices transmitting small amounts of data.

Heat cabinet for infectious diseases, an old technology used to fight polio and other diseases that went out of favor with introduction of antibiotics. May find utility against novel viral infections.

UV light treatment of blood. Another old technology that may find use against novel infectious agents. Stimulates immune system to fight viral infections.

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Oh man, I used to research in OCT for deep brain stimulation! It's pretty cool tech, that is for sure. It's got a huge market for bio applications and certain industrials.

That said, optics is a super finicky field. You can come in and get a Nobel for 5 hours work, or you can spend 50 years in a dark room trying to get things together. Alignment is crazy difficult, thought it seems it shouldn't be.

Anyone that wants to dive into optics: Just do it for 2 years, no more.

Tell me more about getting a Nobel in 5 hours. I’ll buy your ebook :)

Alignment should be done system-wide by orders of magnitude. If you are on a breadboard, get everything to within a cm of final location, then everything within a mm, etc. Don’t ever spend more than 1 minute at a time on any component. This stuff was not in the textbooks.

It's especially hard with OCT as it's in the IR spectrum. You just have to go on your meters alone. It takes forever.

Meaning, if you don't get there in two years, you won't?

Neat list. Thanks.

I have chronic graft-versus host disease. Side effect of a bone marrow transplant. Mostly effects my skin, which changes color, gets thinner, and in advances stages hardens (aka marbleization).

GVHD is wicked hard to diagnose, monitor. Skin biopsies and normal digital photos.

I've asked my misc doctors (at FHCRC, SCCA, Univ of Wash) over the years about using UV to better diagnose skin conditions.

Now I'm wondering if OCT could also be helpful, perhaps for assessing the scarring.

OCT is a recognized diagnostic modality in dermatology and worth discussing with your doctors. Here are some references:

https://www.mdedge.com/dermatology/article/146053/melanoma/o...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5946785/

http://www.octnews.org/category/5/dermatology/

and here is a clinic that talks about using it to assess skin: https://dermnetnz.org/topics/optical-coherence-tomography/

> UV light treatment of blood.

What? No... No don't do this. This is a discarded idea from the era before molecular biology, and it was discarded for very good reason.

Opportunity can come from ideas that are correct but not generally accepted as correct.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4783265/

If it were to work it would be a useful new modality. I am not promoting it, but it's on my "watch list" due to efforts by AYTU at Cedars Sinai.

Opportunity to give people leukemia. These ideas are at a prehistoric level of biology. We're way beyond this silliness now.

I am talking about work being done in clinical trials at reputable medical clinics. They may be mistaken but I don't think it's "silliness." Here is a recent clinical trial evaluating UVBI https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2331205X.2019.1...

Of course there are many other mainstream treatments that came from somewhat oddball ideas: Sister Kenney's treatments for polio, the Nobel prize winning discovery by Barry Marshall and Robin Warren that ulcers were caused by bacteria (H. Pylori), the use of leaches for treatment of venous congestion after surgery, and the use of maggots for wound debridement.

It should never have been signed off on by an IRB. It is irresponsible and horrific that this has been trialed on people in this century.

Any specific objections to the research links provided?

I suspect this may be a case of "the dose makes the poison."

You may be generalizing from a specific experience or specific experiment and rejecting a modality that may have significant efficacy.

It's hard to tell what you are basing your assertions on because you offer no specifics. My "watch list" interest is based on the number of positive experimental results and ongoing investigations of the technique.

In my experience the commonest current mainstream use of this is for Sezary Syndrome / mycosis fungoides (cutaneous T-cell lymphoma). See for example:

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/8493-mycosis-...

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