Cancer Cells Detected Using $400 Digital Camera 90
fergus07 writes "Researchers have detected oral cancer cells using a fiber-optic cable and an off-the-shelf Olympus E-330 camera worth $400. The work by Rice University biomedical engineers and researchers from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center could improve access to diagnostic imaging tools in many parts of the world where these expensive resources are scarce. In the tests, a common fluorescent dye was used to make cell nuclei glow brightly and images were taken using the tip of the fiber-optic bundle attached to the camera. The distorted nuclei, which indicate cancerous and pre-cancerous cells, could then be distinguished on the camera's LCD monitor."
stats (Score:3, Insightful)
A divining rod can detect water, too. What matters is the false positive and false negative rate.
Congress... (Score:5, Insightful)
Cost? (Score:3, Insightful)
Soo... a $400 camera and a $10,000 fiber optic cable?
Re:Yeah right (Score:3, Insightful)
Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep someone alive for another few days (if at all), drugged out of their mind is just a waste of resources.
Perhaps for /you/ it is, but what about that person? What about that person's family? See thats the nice thing about freedom is that you shouldn't have to pay for what I want and I don't dictate what you want. Of course our government fucked us over long ago removing any true economic freedom....
Re:Yeah right (Score:1, Insightful)
You are certainly free to pay out of your own pocket for extreme care, no one in the US or any other nominally free country (no matter what political side you are on) has said otherwise. It's a question of should *I* have to pay for your insistence that you be granted the freedom to spend a disgusting amount of money to extend one life by a trivial amount of time, especially when others are dying much younger, for want of much less expensive care...
FDA approval (Score:3, Insightful)
By the time the FDA approves this device for diagnostic use, it will be a $10,000 camera ann it will need to be operated by a licensed radiologist.
Re:Yeah right (Score:3, Insightful)
We need to reduce the cost of health care so we don't need insurance to pay for those things. Does no one else find it incredibly backwards that you would use insurance for such trivial things? Chances are you wouldn't use your homeowners insurance to pay for something as silly as a small board that needed replacing, or for a bit of touch-up paint, but yet we seem to think we need health insurance to pay for those things?
It's a question of should *I* have to pay for your insistence that you be granted the freedom to spend a disgusting amount of money to extend one life by a trivial amount of time, especially when others are dying much younger, for want of much less expensive care...
If we had a free economy that wouldn't ever be a problem, but instead we have doctors who are too afraid to compete, regulations which screw doctors out of actually -being- with their patents and helping them and instead they have to fill out paperwork for government/insurance/etc. If we would let the free market really work, we'd see an increase in the amount of life saving cures, a decrease in the cost of health care so you wouldn't use insurance to pay for tiny little things, with that gone then insurance would go down because not everyone is going to develop cancer or some major thing and need to use that much insurance, rather than today someone uses insurance on something as silly as a scraped knee.
Fix the economy and you've pretty much fixed health care.
Re:Great to know, but can I afford to treat it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:stats (Score:1, Insightful)
You must have aced all your college statistics courses...
Re:stats (Score:3, Insightful)