Using Sound Waves For Outpatient Neurosurgery 152
eldavojohn writes "Got a piece of malfunctioning brain tissue in your head? Want to avoid messy lobotomies and skull saws? Well, you're in luck; a study shows that acoustic waves can do the trick and will hopefully treat patients with disorders like Parkinson's disease. A specialist said, 'The groundbreaking finding here is that you can make lesions deep in the brain — through the intact skull and skin — with extreme precision and accuracy and safety.' They focus beams on the part of the brain needing treatment and it absorbs the energy, which turns to heat. The temperature hits about 130 F, and they can burn 10 cubic millimeters at a time. Using an MRI to see areas of heat, they can watch the whole time and target only what needs to be burned. The study consisted of nine subjects suffering from chronic pain that did not subside with medication (normally they need to go in and destroy a small part of the thalamus on these patients). After the outpatient procedure, all nine reported immediate pain relief and none experienced neurological problems or other side effects after surgery."
Very cool, but... (Score:0, Interesting)
This is fantastic technology but it also helps to illustrate the reason we are currently in the health care mess - i.e. spiraling prices. The cost associated with this treatment is so great that the benefit enjoyed by the recipient can never be paid off by their gain of function.
That is to say, if these patients wouldn't have been treated they would have made X amount of money. With treatment they may make marginally more, lets say X+Y. However, since Y is only maringally more, over the lifetime of the patient the sum of the Y can never equal the initial investment of the surgery. Thus the bill is ultimately covered by us, that is society, in one way or another. Either the bill is footed by the insurance company which will raise the rates for those involved, or by the hospital, which will then seek out for government aid to stay afloat.
Realistically we need to start realizing that not every person DESERVES the best treatment, because the best treatment is so costly that society can never regain that investment. To think otherwise is to bankrupt ourselves.
Other parts of the body. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Very cool, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
whereas the cost of human labor (i.e., of surgeons and nurses) will not.
Eventually though it might. Eventually automated machines can take care of a lot of stuff. While surgeries might have to have more human intervention, eventually all minor procedures and general care-taking could be done via machine. So while for the foreseeable future you would need a human surgeon, in the two weeks you are in the hospital you might not need hardly any other people to take care of you.
ow, my aching hot spot... (Score:3, Interesting)
Any ideas, Dr. Slashdot?
Re:Very cool, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
For a while the technology will be expensive, but the cost will come down, whereas the cost of human labor (i.e., of surgeons and nurses) will not. So in the long run, perhaps this is cheaper.
I suspect that sometime in the near future (10 to 25 years), that most surgeries will not involve a human being for the operation itself.
For all its worth, I suspect America will never political solve the problem with Universal Healthcare, but technology will eventually fill in the gap.
At the cost of how many lives in the meantime until that day...
Epilepsy (Score:4, Interesting)
Abuse (Score:2, Interesting)
What springs to mind first is the terrible potential to abuse this technology on political prisoners, criminals, etc.
Depending on how well you pinpoint certain areas of the brain, but I wonder if you can permanently destroy a person's effectiveness at whatever skills the government doesn't want them pursuing. It sounds like this procedure doesn't leave any external evidence, and the internal lesion may not be readily identifiable without biopsy.
"We will release you to your family immediately, but only if you consent to this minor procedure...."
Sound wave lobotomies (Score:1, Interesting)
Wasn't this in an episode of The Prisoner? That show was way before its time.
Re:Safety? (Score:5, Interesting)
Currently, all brain surgery consists of excising something, implanting something, or making a lesion in something. We do not have the ability to make a repair on anything in the brain. The best we can do is find the part that is malfunctioning and kill it off so it at least won't interfere with the rest.
What this does is avoid the whole drilling holes in the skull part and the infection risk that goes with it.
Re:Other parts of the body. (Score:3, Interesting)
Apparently it wasn't particularly painful to the people receiving the treatment. But with that said, I got a couple massive transfusions of chilled blood one time after a car crash and I can tell you for sure that you can feel the inside of your heart when ice water hits it. It is not a good feeling.
No No No! (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone who lives with chronic pain, let me say you are so far off the mark.
I do respond to medication, but the only pain-killers that work are very heavy - Fentanyl.
I haven't had a full time job for many years. I never will without advances in the treatment of pain. If a procedure like this may mean I can work again, and pay taxes. Then I can afford expensive medical insurance.
More importantly, my kids then have a Dad who works full-time. They see that working leads to reward. They see that working hard at school can lead to a better life. At the moment my 16 y.o. sees no point in trying, as life can throw a curve ball and fuck you over. So if I could get something closer to a "normal" life, my kids will see me modelling better work-ethics and will be more likely to emulate my success. They see there's a point to trying to achieve their level of personal excellence, earn more money, pay more taxes and have more productive and potentially happier lives.
That's 6 people now pay more taxes.
Now I'm a maths teacher by vocation. If I was able to teach full-time I would be able to show several hundred kids a year that maths is easy, maths is fun, and that they can use it to solve real problems in everyday life. A few of these kids will go on to do amazing things, just because I can do what I am good at doing, and I can do it well. Over say 20 years there would be a significant number of people who have happier lives, earn more money and pay more taxes.
That's say 300 people now pay more taxes.
It's been shown in the literature that children of professionals are significantly more likely to undergo tertiary study and become professionals. So the children of the kids that were inspired to greatness by having a great teacher are more likely to have happier, more productive lives with higher paying jobs.
So there are potentially thousands of people who are paying more taxes, who are making great discoveries, and are generally happier, just because my pain is better managed without putting knives inside my head.
Look past the short-term benefits to the individual, and look at the potential returns to society and humanity as a whole, and the pay-off of a (admittedly) expensive procedure becomes enormous. And the return to the individual who suffers otherwise incurable chronic pain is not something measured in $$. To not wake up crying because I didn't die in my sleep would bloody marvellous. It's the possibility that there will be advances that help me that has kept me from suicide, and I'm not Robinson Crusoe.
Re:Epilepsy (Score:3, Interesting)
Neurosurgery (along with other kinds of brain damage) frightens me like few other phenomena. It's a little bit like saying: "okay, this piece of code in the kernel is crashing. Let's overwrite it with NOPs and see what happens." What if you need that part of your brain? Are you really the same person after the procedure?
In that sense, you're a different person every time your brain undergoes any change, including learning, forgetting, being short on sleep or having extra sleep, etc. I think the notion of "identity" can be disturbingly slippery.