Neurosurgery with robotic assistance is getting pretty old hat nowadays, so it looks like scientists are trying to up the difficulty factor by keeping their patients awake -- a team of French doctors just completed the first successful removal of malignant brain tumor from a still-conscious patient, using a computerized laser and an MRI scanner to guide the probe. The fiber-optic laser was fed into the brain through a 3mm (.12 inch) hole in the patient's skull and guided via MRI to the tumor, where it fired for two minutes and completely destroyed the cancerous tissue. Once the tumor cells were dead, the cable was removed and the patient was allowed to return home -- all within a single day. That's pretty impressive, and it comes on the heels of 15 similar trials where five out six patients who underwent the total removal procedure were cancer-free nine months after surgery. The team says further research will cost an additional two million euros to progress, but if this technique works as well as they claim after peer review, we'd guess that money won't be hard to come by.

[Via Fark]

Gurus at Purdue University have conjured up a prototype device which, when injected into a tumor, can actually track the "precise dose of radiation received and locate the exact position [of the tumor] during treatment." Currently, the needle-sized device is held within a hermetically sealed glass capillary, contains a miniature radiation dosimeter, operates without batteries and instead relies on "electrical coils placed next to the patient" for activation. As small as the RFID-enabled unit is, engineers are still hoping to create a version that is around the size of a grain of rice, and hopes are to have it in clinical trials in 2010.

[Via Physorg]

Circulating tumor cells, which are more commonly referred to as CTCs, have thus far remained practically useless when it came to aiding in clinical decision making, but a new development could enable these rare cells to finally be used for guiding treatment. Reportedly, a crew of investigators from the Massachusetts General Hospital have crafted a "microchip-based device (dubbed CTC-chip) that can isolate, enumerate and analyze CTCs from a blood sample," which has the "potential to be an invaluable tool for monitoring and guiding cancer treatment." Additionally, researchers can look forward to "better understanding the biology of cancer cells and the mechanisms of metastasis," but there's still quite a bit of work to be done before the device can be put to clinical use.

[Via Physorg]

Man, that was quick. Just two days after reports hit the net about RFID implants being linked to cancer, VeriChip is lunging out to vehemently defend its own implantable microchip. Interestingly enough, the firm cites phrases from a number of studies to suggest that all is well and we've nothing to fear by getting one of these bad boys inserted into us, and it also makes darn sure we know the thing has been "cleared by the FDA as a Class II Medical Device." Lastly, the company has promised to continue looking at the "veracity and credibility of the studies," and noted that it would "take the necessary steps to ensure that our products remain safe to the end user." Phew, good thing, eh?