First of all, how can non-invasive surgery even be possible? After all, even in the case of minimally-invasive laparoscopic surgery, small incisions are still made in the skin. Nonetheless, that’s just what scientists from the University of Michigan are proposing. They believe that it could be achieved by using a beam of sound, which would be emitted through the skin to a highly-focused point within the body – and they’ve already created such a beam and used it.
Focused sound waves are already used in the field of medicine, for doing things such as non-invasively shattering kidney stones and prostate tumors. These waves can generally only be focused to a point no smaller than several millimeters across, however. This means they wouldn’t work at all well for performing delicate surgery.
via gizmag
December 21, 2012
