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Comment by 0xcb0 | Hacker News Reader

Sounds interesting. I can only imagine what can be done if they can increase the resolution further so one can target tiny cell patches in the human body/living organism. Maybe even stop internal bleeding or more. Feels like Enterprise on the medical station. Being able to do this always reminds me I'm old and this is the future :D

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Contrary to what this press release implies, radiation treatments are focused too. The basic idea is that you use a rotating beam source with a center of rotation at the exact spot you want to treat. The beam delivers only a fairly modest dose to most of the surrounding issues because of its continual motion, but it always passes through the center, so the cumulative dose in that area is far higher. This image illustrates the idea:

https://patients.uroweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Radia...

It's not perfect, and acoustic waves should have fewer side effects, but we already have the ability to selectively target a specific location inside your body.

I've had lithotripsy to destroy kidney stones. If the patches of cancer are smaller than that, then I can imagine it might be more difficult.

The trick with lithotripsy is that the stones have to be visible on a regular x-ray machine in order to be able to steer the beams of sound to the correct target. I don't know how you would detect the correct targets with cancer cells, at least not in an immediate feedback system that could be used by the doctors while the patient was on the table.

Lets hope it makes noise in the future of medicine.

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