Surgeons Weld Wounds Shut With Surgical Laser 151
Ruach writes "The promise of medical lasers goes beyond clean incisions and eye surgery: Many believe that lasers should be used not just to create wounds but to mend them too. Abraham Katzir, a physicist at Tel Aviv University, has a system that may just do the trick and is proving successful in its first human trials."
So Trek's closing-wounds-with-beams thing is real? (Score:5, Interesting)
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People like Wolverine..........as long as they can take time out after every injury to run a "fricken' laser" beam over their wounds.
What if... (Score:5, Funny)
...they had lasers on the INSIDE beaming out when ever their flesh is pierced? You know, like having lasers in the blood.
How come Marvel didn't yet come up with such an awesome character?
Would such a combination make the character some kind of a weird Wolverine-Cyclops hybrid?
What would Jean Grey think about that?
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She'd probably try to guiltily screw it before dying for the 64^10th time...for a while.
What lasers should be for (Score:2)
"Do you expect me to talk?" "No Mr Bond, I expect you to die!" [boreme.com]
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What kind of rod does one use for that weld?
Re:So Trek's closing-wounds-with-beams thing is re (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA:
"All a surgeon has to do is move the pen's tip along the cut, strengthening and sealing the weld with a solder of water-soluble protein."
It looks a lot like very controlled cooking and I suspect the protein used to connect the tissue denatures in the process. It's not welding, it's hot-melt glue.
Still very cool.
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hmm isn't that a modern way of the old heat a knife over a fire then burn the wound closed with the side of it like on movies?
I think the modern version of that would be using superglue. Both effective but fairly brutal & 'last resort'.
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I think a better analogy would be that this is like soldering for the body.
Can anyone translate this to car analogy?
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I think a better analogy would be that this is like soldering for the body.
Can anyone translate this to car analogy?
One word: Bondo.
Misuse of closing-wounds-with-beams thing (Score:2, Interesting)
"Imagine that sort of device in the hands of your unscrupulous friends. They would sneak up behind you and seal your ass shut as a practical joke. The devices would be sold in novelty stores instead of medical outlets."
- Why real life will never be like star trek, The Dilbert Future, by Scott Adams
The real news (Score:5, Informative)
As usual, the summary misses the interesting bit. Using lasers to seal wounds is old news - I first read about it in the Readers Digest about a decade ago. What's new here is a mechanism to prevent overheating.
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This shit needs to make it to battlefield medics sooner than later.
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The shit in question was probably developed with the battlefield in mind in the first place. Just like Superglue, which was developed so seal off wounds of injured soldiers.
Re:The real news (Score:4, Interesting)
Cuz that's what medics want to carry. A large battery pack with a small laser, while humping a guy back to the aid station. Or maybe a gas generator.
Hell, it could be dual use. As a weapon, it can blind enemy combatants or slice open their skin, but when the enemy gets closer, you bend over a wounded comrade and claim to be a medic, and that it's your laser scalpel/magical healing device.
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"Cuz that's what medics want to carry. A large battery pack with a small laser, while humping a guy back to the aid station. Or maybe a gas generator."
Mount it in a vehicle. Most of our ops these days are mounted anyway, so why have medics lugging shit around? Depending on just how much space it takes up, you could probably put one in each HMMWV and Bradley. Or, failing that, you could have a designated vehicle for the medics.
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Hmm... conflict is an essential part of evolution. Ending wars is a nice dream... But in reality, it's just nice for the oppressor. Because no wars always means, that something/someone is extremely predominant. Those who think otherwise will normally fight for their way. If they can't, it's because of a horribly strong oppression.
The illusion, that we can do without conflicts (which sometimes end in wars), comes from the illusion that there is one global truth, when in reality, everything is relative.
So in
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yerch, and here come the isolationist libertarians, trotting out their ideology as if they've realised some perfect universal order that no one else gets.
First, the word "evolution" is a very bad one to use as a justification, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you meant something more akin to "progress".
And just unde
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And
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Isolationist
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Fine, you've got me on semantics. When saying "Isolationist" I should have said "non-interventionist".
I'd call it picky but you are right.
Interestingly the wiki also identifies non-interventionism with the libertarian movement.
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> Hmm... conflict is an essential part of evolution.
Maybe, but war isn't. Many bacteria and plants and herbivores happily live their lives without ever being at risk of being killed by their own kind. A 'war' against others of your kind is something very few species do (I guess ants can be considered an exception).
Let's not use 'evolution' as an excuse for war. Even if war was part of evolution, the whole thing that defines us humans is that we can mostly ignore what would happen in nature.
> The illus
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we have no right so tell them what to do
The hell we do. Philosophers have been arguing the point for ages, but at the end of the day I do believe there are such things as absolute morals. I do not believe such morals should arise from such arbitrary things as the haphazard religious writings that float around this planet, but rather should be based on common sense and deliberate thought.
A society which thinks it's perfectly OK to rape anyone in sight and then eats them blatantly violates everything that was ever said about human rights pretty muc
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ah, i'm just gonna be a simple-minded fool about this. you said evolution is all about survival and reproduction. that's true (although survival isn't always a necessity, think of the widow spider). then, you proceed to claim that we no longer need to worry about survival. arguable, but true so far. what interests me here is that the only goal left is reproduction..
if we were to "reproduce" with the same enthousiasm that we kill others with... does that mean we should solve our problems the bonobo way?
and d
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Obviously, your statement was nuanced differently than mine. When I said survival and reproduction are essential, to me that means the ability to survive long enough to reproduce one's gene-set as well as facilitating the survival of your offspring so they can pass on that set of genes.
Secondly, when I said physical survival is commonplace, I meant that mere physical strength or a capacity towards violence will not necessarily make you more or less successful at reproducing in today's society, which changes
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well, i was joking just now. but you provided some very good points. still, you avoided the main point of my last post, whether we could learn anything from bonobo society. i guess not though, since we'd have to find another way to vent any aggression.
hey, that reminds me... what do you think, would it be possible to completely weed out aggression from a society or is it too deeply ingrained in our being?
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> hey, that reminds me... what do you think, would it be possible to completely weed out aggression from a society or is it too deeply ingrained in our being?
Should we want to weed out aggression from a society? I don't think so. I think in some situations, aggression is the right course of action (or simply the fun thing to do, I for one enjoy a little senseless murder and mayhem now and then when playing videogames. Sometimes so-called 'friendly' NPCs really need to get shotgunned in the face). A bette
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A society which thinks it's perfectly OK to rape anyone in sight and then eats them blatantly violates everything that was ever said about human rights pretty much anywhere in this world. There is probably not a government on the planet right now that would get behind that notion
Great, you've identified a moral absolute which no one in the history of the planet has ever disagreed with. Universal rape followed by cannibalism is out. Awesome. Good luck coming up with a universally agreed list of moral absolutes that actually correspond to real life moral questions though.
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So in reality, you will never have a whole planet with one point of view, or even with 100% compatible views.
Any human planet, anyway.
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Re:The real news (Score:5, Interesting)
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Lasers (Score:2)
Is there anything they can't do? [slashdot.org]
Sharks! (Score:1)
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Cauterizing lasers, for the conscientious shark.
Optimal Temperature (Score:5, Funny)
First, they had to determine the optimal temperature at which flesh melts but can still heal (about 65 degrees Celsius).
I don't envy the test subjects.
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Oh, don't worry they didn't start by decreasing by one degree on someone counting down from 500 Celsius. They started at 425. It cooks french fries quite well. The article doesn't mention the use of anesthetic or painkillers.
So yeah, being a test subject would suck! But, you probably get $20 for your time. And a 'consult' with a doctor.
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In Israel?
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I'll have you know that I've bought and eaten some of the most splendid ham, pork chops and ribs I have tasted to date in Israel. The Wadi in Haifa has a lot of Christian Arabs that sell outrageously good meat, including pork. Alright, I do have a spot of trouble sourcing real raw bacon, because the climate here causes butchers to only sell the stuff smoked or cured, but that's besides the point.
Furthermore the national supermarket chain "Tiv Tam" (for Russians by Russians) has pork, albeit of inferior qual
For while the true Laser will bring you life... (Score:2)
Doesn't this invalidate (Score:4, Funny)
sharks with friggin lasers on their heads?
I mean the poor thing is going to keep biting and not understand why the pray wont die.
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so sharks will be able to play with their food now
it's just like having a play toy that keeps giving..
I'm never going to the beach again...
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The whole point. (Score:3, Interesting)
The whole point of this new method is that you can cauterize a wound without charring the flesh, instead just melting it. The optimal temperature for this is, apparently, 60-70 deg. C., and this is maintained using feedback from an infrared sensor on the "soldering pen". They apparently also use a water soluble protein as "solder". The scars on in the TFA pictures look real nice. Wonder if the wound will hurt more or less than a conventionally sealed wound?
Scarring (Score:2)
A clean cut can heal in a way that has minimal impact. When you melt flesh you're doing lasting, siginificant changes that doesn't really heal. You'll change a thin white line that fades with a tan to a large pink splotch on the skin that won't really ever go away.
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Heh, I think you're underestimating how *tiny* lazor beams can get. With this, there should be *zero* evidence of scarring, once the skin grows over.
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It says right there in TFA that the doctors believed that the scar looks and is healing better than the conventionally sealed wounds.
Infact theres a discussion about this not very far up the page from this comment.
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You'll have to forgive me for not reading through every single comment...
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Ted Stevens voice: NO.
Shark surgeons? (Score:1)
The end of natural (Score:5, Funny)
We are doomed.
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Now, now. However tiny scars may get, fakes are still fairly easy to spot. The bigger they are, the easier it is to spot them.
Talk about Captian Obvious.
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Come on now! You can easily feel whether they are man-made or not, and if that fails you can still ascertain it by looking at the degree to which they wiggle (or not) during a shag.
Besides... who cares, really? If it pleases you it pleases you.
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Breasts, I mean. This is going to be heavily used to close incisions of breast augmentation surgery. We shall lose a weapon in our arsenal of 'true-fake' wars.
It's already been lost. I know someone personally who has a boob job, she got them inserted through her navel. And it didn't cost all that much more than the kind where they slice the boob instead. Its probably only good for 10 years though and she will have to get cut on the boob in order to have them removed/replaced.
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I know someone personally who has a boob job, she got them inserted through her navel.
She must be very ... short.
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It's already been lost. I know someone personally who has a boob job, she got them inserted through her navel.
You have to wonder what they're gonna do next [youtube.com] - brain surgery through the sole?
np: B. Fleischmann - As If (Welcome Tourist (Disc 1))
Very, very brave people (Score:1)
TFA states that several people underwent clinical trials... for a FLESH-WELDING LASER.
Anyone who hears those words and still goes in for experimental surgery is probably the bravest person on the planet. I salute you!
How the button panel of the device will look like (Score:1)
[Stun] [Cure] [Kill] [Charge] ;)
[Laserpointer] [Flashlight] [Blue Light] [Disco] - Never mix up with blue light - it might be embarassing!
[Self Destruct][Help][Big Surprise][Not-So-Big Surprise]
[Undo]
65 Celcius melting point of skin? (Score:4, Interesting)
Firstly, 65C, isn't that the just above the heat of a warm bath, and doesn't a sauna reach up to 110C ? Second, since when does a skin melt?
Who can give some more indepth information about this?
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O.k., since a sauna reaches up to 110C, you should be able to stick your hand in a pot of boiling water with no ill effects.
The mechanism of the heat transfer is just as important as the temperature.
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Have you ever burnt yourself on the stove or something? Then you'd know that skin melts.
65C is way, way, waaaaay above the temperature you'd want in a warm bath and while the air temperature is 110C in a sauna your skin never reaches that temperature, if you stayed in the sauna long enough your skin would melt though(I think you'd die first)
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Firstly, 65C, isn't that the just above the heat of a warm bath, and doesn't a sauna reach up to 110C ? Second, since when does a skin melt?
Who can give some more indepth information about this?
PubMed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez [nih.gov]
Nothing I can find that answers directly to the details in TFA, it is after all original research, but I find a few that are probably among the present research's predecessors, which relate the fact that various collogens are unstable and unfold or 'melt' at temperatures less than 65C, including human lung tissue that's unstable at body temperature. I used "skin melting temperature" -- other search terms may prove more fruitful.
Re:65 Celcius melting point of skin? (Score:5, Informative)
Second, since when does a skin melt?
Skin isn't just the rigid layer of dead cells covered in keratin that you're used to seeing. Lots of interesting things happen under the basement membrane [wikipedia.org] in the "extra-cellular matrix". Cells aren't just glued to each other but rather they produce and surround themselves with different proteins - some for rigidity and others to allow flexibility and elasticity.
This matrix becomes more fluid at higher temperatures as the proteins unwind and change shape with the heat. The theory is that if you have two pieces of matrix close enough to each other and increase the temperature, some of the proteins from either side of the wound will entangle with the opposite side, and remain entangled when the temperature is lowered again, kind of like velcro on a molecular level. The trick is to provide just enough temperature to get the proteins to entangle with each other, without putting so much temperature that they end up destroyed.
Anyway surgeons have known about cauterization for a long time. It helps fix all those little mistakes (oops who put that artery there...). There's nothing more fun than watching a bleeder turn into a brown and black bubbling mess of protein goo - but goo that no longer bleeds.
It would be interesting to know how this "new" technique holds up under different conditions - sepsis, metabolic disorders like diabetes, etc. And of course how much trouble is the patient in if ever there's a dehiscence [wikipedia.org]? At least with sutures, the other sutures are there to keep the wound reasonably closed...
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You must be one of those surgeons. The ones that, as a surgical case is winding up, they spend inordinate amounts of time frying each and every tiny little "bleeder" that they find. Never mind that, if left alone, the whole mess of them won't account for a few band-aids full of blood. Never mind that the anesthesiologist has just about got the patient extubated. You'
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I'm pretty sure I've operated with you before....
Ah, a voice from the "other" side of the "blood-brain barrier"!
Remember that one way or the other, ALL patients eventually stop bleeding...
You anesthesiologists always want to rush things. No wonder it's always your fault.
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Are you quite sure you're not getting Celsius and Fahrenheit mixed up?
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Firstly, 65C, isn't that the just above the heat of a warm bath
A Jacuzzi runs at 40C.
A perfect defense. how will they know? (Score:1, Funny)
Your Honour and Jury members,
I wasn't trying to cut the man in half with my laser, but only to sew him back together. I submit this slashdot article as evidence exhibit A.
The Perfect Crime (Score:1)
Great way (Score:5, Insightful)
To instantly send the cost of that $7500 surgery to $15,000. After all, SOMEONE has to finance, maintain and insure that $300,000 laser machine because a $2 package of 3-0 nylon monofilament just won't do nowadays. Hey do we still have the machine that goes "bing" [youtube.com]?
Re:Great way (Score:4, Informative)
Nothing is anywhere near as cheap as $2.
It is when I buy it for my clinic. Syringes, 15, I sell them to you for $1.50. Suture, around $1.75 each pack last time I bought, and I sell them to you for $15. That's what happens when I have to pay between $20k and $60k a year (depending on the specialty and how many times I have been sued) in malpractice insurance premiums before covering other, simpler costs like "rent". You can thank the "jackpot justice" players and ambulance chasing lawyers for that.
Oh, I guess you could buy your own sutures for $1.75 but no, "This item is restricted for sale only to or by order of a physician". Sorry.
Of course be careful at hospitals, they sometimes rip you off in illegal ways, like charging you for a whole box of medication when all they gave you was one pill. Always check your bill. I do.
Good thing they mentioned the inventor (Score:4, Interesting)
Gladly, they mentioned the inventor Abraham Katzir (a physicist at Tel Aviv University).
All too often, it''s the surgeon who gets all the credit when, in fact, all this wonderful medical technology is created by engineers and whole team - a lot more people than the guys who like to pose as heroes.
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You can hate and love something at the same time, for different reasons.
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You can hate and love something at the same time, for different reasons.
Yes, that pretty much defines "marriage", I think.
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It has nothing to do with religion
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That's actually a common misconception.
US foreign aid to Israel is limited to commodities purchased back from US companies: Israel cannot spend that money in any other way.
The money goes back to US companies like Boeing or Lockheed martin when Israel purchases fighter jets.
You can rest assured, that university research projects in Israel don't see a dime from US tax payer money. (Unless it's some US D.O.D joint effort)
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The foreign aid to Israel is given out since the US recognizes the strategic importance of Israel in the middle east - it is vital to promote US interests in the area.
And yes, the game is played both ways. Both US and Israel gain from the foreign aid - i just don't want people to think that the US is spending money in Israel without gaining anything from it. The US is not a philanthropic organization and Joe six pack is definitely not funding the Jews because they tricked him into it.
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Honest question, what does the US gain from the money it gives to Israel? Is that gain cancelled out by the negative views of the US throughout region as a result?
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I've got a great story after talking with a girl who fled Iran after her family was persecuted for not being Islamic (belonged to some weird minor regional religion). Though it's an anecdote, I've come to believe the
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First of all, plenty of Christians have killed and will kill a non-believer. It's documented well, and countless times.
Funnily enough 10% of Jews in Israel *will* also stone your ass if you drive through a particular street on a Shabat, if you happen be Palestinian and live near certain settlers and if you dare to drive/eat/smoke in their vicinity on a Yom Kippur.
Believe me. I live here. The latter example actually took place in Akko recently. An Arab drove through Akko (which is an Arabic city), ended up o
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First of all, plenty of Christians have killed and will kill a non-believer. It's documented well, and countless times.
Sure it's happened lots historically, but all present day cases are really just psychopaths.
Funnily enough 10% of Jews in Israel *will* also stone your ass if you drive through a particular street on a Shabat, if you happen be Palestinian and live near certain settlers and if you dare to drive/eat/smoke in their vicinity on a Yom Kippur.
It cuts both ways. There are many mountain regions in Israel that you can't go without also risking being stoned.
Believe me. I live here. The latter example actually took place in Akko recently. An Arab drove through Akko (which is an Arabic city), ended up on a Jewish street, got stones thrown at his car and subsequently *he* was arrested for it.
And hopefully t
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In 1987 George Bush Sr said an atheist can never be considered a citizen and an atheist can never be considered a patriot. Because this is one nation under God. And he got elected president. Twice. And then his son. Twice.
Actually, the first Bush only got elected once. Normally, since you don't live here, I wouldn't bother to point out your error, but since you're up on your, um...
So please climb off that horse and shut up about the Muslims. Humanists and an atheists can say something about Muslims.
Oh, gee, thanks for the permission. I'm an atheist, and I'd support Israel over the rest of the Middle East any day of the week including the Sabbath. Forget religion; they're the only functioning democracy in the Middle East, and they're surrounded by countries that want to wipe them off the map. I'd say that makes them worth defending, just a
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Wrong again, HateBreeder. Oh how ironic it is that that is your choosen nick..
The indirect costs in goodwill the Israeli-American special relationship is causing American companies is orders of magnitudes bigger than the direct aid cost which is 5 billions/year. Companies have a much harder time penetrating Arab markets thanks to the US pro-Israeli stance. Coca-Cola for example was boycotted in Middle East. The whole oil embargo which caused the US economic recession in the late 70's was a direct result of
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That's actually a common misconception. US foreign aid to Israel is limited to commodities purchased back from US companies: Israel cannot spend that money in any other way. The money goes back to US companies like Boeing or Lockheed martin when Israel purchases fighter jets. You can rest assured, that university research projects in Israel don't see a dime from US tax payer money. (Unless it's some US D.O.D joint effort)
Totally false. In contrast to other receivers of US foreign aid, Israel is allowed to spend the money in what ever way it wants. And they do have a strong domestic weapon industry which means that the aid goes to the Israeli military buying Israeli planes and Israeli tanks.
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Disclaimer: I have no issue with Judaism and its followers, I just want to show the logical flaw in AA's post.
Re:Incisions aren't similar; nonsense comparison m (Score:5, Informative)
No, TFA shows two sample pictures, and TFA didn't do any comparison at all, especially not any based on these particular pictures. The *doctors* compared wounds on ten patients and decided that the laser-bonded scars were healing better, which is what the article reports.
The point of the pictures isn't so *you* can second guess the doctors (who believe it or not know an awful lot more about this than you do). They are there to give a quick visual impression of what's going on, to complement the real detail contained in the text of the article.
If you really want to double check the results, go find the original research paper. However I think you'll find it's rather longer and not quite so interesting to read.
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yep, that's a cliche. but a shark-decal on both sides would be an awesome in-joke for those geeky doctors!
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The new thing with this seems to be the automatic temperature control. It maintains the optimal temperature (~65C) for making a smooth weld and thus minimizes charing/scaring/etc.