Scientists have recently developed a new laser that could have the ability to destroy cancer cells in real time. The cutting-edge technology can detect cancer cells in the bloodstream and then kill them. This treatment is currently being studied by a team of scientists from the University of Arkansas.
The greatest thing about this technology is that it can track and kill cancers all from outside of the body. It is completely non-invasive to the patient who is being treated. The study’s author, Vladimir Zharov, says the new laser treatment also has the potential to stop cancers from metastasizing, or spreading to other parts of the body. This is the primary cause of most deaths related to cancer. The new technology is designed to kill all of the cancer cells before the can metastasize.
How does the laser work?
When doctors shine the laser at the cancer cells in the body, the cancer cells absorb a lot more of the heat than regular cells. As a result, the cancer cells expand and eventually collapse. When they collapse, the cancer cells can no longer metastasize.
Zharov says that using lasers in the medical field has greatly improved disease diagnosis and treatment. But the problem is that the large size of the lasers has stopped researchers and doctors from using them to fight against small cells in the body like cancer cells. However, the beginning tests on this new technology have been very promising. One patient had ninety six percent of their tumor cells destroyed. The doctors were able to accomplish this without even turning the laser up to its maximum power.
This laser isn’t the first that’s been designed to fight disease. However, Zharov claims that it is the first laser of its type to be tested and used to fight disease in humans. There have been over a dozen inventions and treatments that have tried to do something similar to what this laser does. For instance, one treatment developed by researchers from the University of Michigan tried to kill cancer cells using a device that patients wear on their wrist.
But this new laser treatment has one big advantage over past treatments: it is much faster. It can go through a liter of blood looking for cancer in an hour, which is a big improvement on past treatments of this kind.
