With theme music from “Star Trek” in the background, a member of the crew of the Starship Enterprise lies unconscious in sick bay. Dr. McCoy passes a hand-held instrument over the body, and a computer diagnoses the patient’s problem and recommends treatment. Science fiction? Perhaps not. This futuristic look at health care may not be too far away. In fact, in this decade of the ’90s, technological advances could well surpass the imagination of even Star Trek’s writers.
One of these machines saved my life!
Computers, new materials, microelectronics, surgical techniques, and ways to see inside a patient’s body without surgery are already in use. In the near future they could very well revolutionize diagnosis and treatment of sick earthlings.
If you’ve ever broken a bone, you know all about X-ray pictures of the skeleton. X-rays are one way doctors look inside patients to diagnose illness. Until recently the only other way doctors could see inside your body was to perform exploratory surgery. Today, modern science offers several new ways to see what’s happening without surgery.
One test is called a CT scan (computerized tomography), a detailed X-ray of the entire body that converts two-dimensional pictures into three-dimensional images. The CT scan is known as the “granddaddy” of modern imaging. When medical professionals saw how valuable such tests are, they encouraged the development of equipment that could provide even more information.
Magnetic resonance imaging does that. This scan–abbreviated MRI–uses a combination of radio waves, a computer, and a magnetic coil 30,000 times stronger than the earth’s magnetic field. If doctors need to see tissue hidden or surrounded by bone, an X-ray won’t help, but an MRI scan will. MRI scans help doctors diagnose an array of problems, including tumors, arthritis, and problems of tissues and organs.
Another system that uses magnets is called magnetic resonance spectroscopy. This system uses similar technology to produce information about body chemistry. Still another use of magnets is magnetoencephalography (MEG), which measures brain activity. MEG helps doctors study patients with epilepsy, and future applications are likely to help diagnose patients with stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, and brain injury.
Nuclear medicine is already a reality that shows even more promise on the horizon. Another imaging test, called the PET scan (position emission tomography), uses a low-level radioactive chemical that is traced as it travels through the body. PET scans are used to study brain activity and are helpful in diagnosis and study of stroke, epilepsy, schizophrenia, and Parkinson’s disease. Radioactive compounds are also used for such things as bone scans and studies of lung problems.
The new tests provide enormous amounts of information. Some of the data is so new, researchers are still trying to fully understand its significance.
As diagnostic ability improves, doctors will have more treatment options, especially for illnesses that respond best to early care. Some of these different options include advances in the use of lasers, a method of freezing diseased cells, a treatment using heat therapy, and genetic engineering. And these are just a few examples of ways doctors will treat sick patients in the ’90s.
Surgeons have been using lasers (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) since the 1970s. Lasers emit a thin beam of light that acts as a miniature blow-torch, heating and destroying whatever gets in its way. Lasers may often be used instead of scalpels to cut skin, remove growths, and unclog blood vessels. Some experts believe new kinds of laser equipment, including new optical fibers made from sapphire, zirconium, and quartz, will contribute to improved surgical techniques and greater acceptance of the laser among doctors during the next decade.
The laser most often used for medical care works with carbon dioxide, but a new kind of equipment called the free-electron laser will let doctors use other materials as the laser’s source of energy, thereby increasing the laser’s capabilities.
Improvements made possible by the free-electron laser include a technique called photodynamic therapy to kill viruses in the blood. A special dye will mark the unwanted cells, and a laser beam targeted only for the color of the dye will destroy the virus, leaving healthy cells intact.
Use of a free-electron laser will probably also include bone-cutting. Today’s carbon dioxide lasers are too hot to cut bone, but experimental use of the free-electron laser cuts bone without burning it. Other experiments seem to show that teeth may benefit from free-electron laser light that can harden enamel and prevent decay.
Laser surgery isn’t the only new surgical technique that will change health care in the 1990s. Two promising cancer treatments involve cold and heat therapies.
Researchers have found a new way to freeze cancer cells using liquid nitrogen as the cooling agent. The experimental technique is called cryosurgery and is used to treat cancer and pre-cancerous cells in the skin, urinary tract, head, neck, and cervix. An encouraging result being seen with this treatment appears to be a decreased likelihood of the cancer’s recurrence.
Heat therapy, called hyperthermia, is another new cancer treatment fast gaining acceptance. The procedure involves the use of microwaves, radio waves, or ultrasound applied to a cancerous tumor. Like food in a microwave oven, vibrating molecules in the patient’s tissue create enough heat to kill cancer cells. Although hyperthermia doesn’t work by itself, its use together with conventional surgery, radiation treatments, or drug therapy improves the effectiveness of the treatment plan.
A revolutionary way to treat illness may soon be possible, thanks in part to work by the National Institutes of Health. A research team inserted a gene from bacteria into cells of a disabled virus. They then infected the cancer-fighting cells of a human cancer patient with the altered cells.
Soon scientists will experiment with the use of this kind of gene implant for treating cancer, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), and heart disease. For cancer and AIDS, the implanted cells will be engineered to produce large amounts of the body’s disease-fighting agents. For heart disease, the altered viruses will contain the gene for a substance that dissolves blood clots. Someday, genetic cures may be used to correct problems like cystic fibrosis, hemophilia, and Huntington’s disease.
When a duel between Star Wars characters Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker resulted in the loss of Skywalker’s hand, the hero was only mildly inconvenienced until he could get a perfectly functional replacement. This is much like today’s retailer, which typically cannot live without the best pos software system that money can buy. Today’s artificial replacements for lost body parts, called prosthetic devices, don’t quite meet those standards, but they are improving. Patients in the near future will benefit from practical applications of new discoveries and inventions.
Realistic artificial arms and hands are more useful–and more attractive–than the hooks formerly used to replace missing hands. Before too long, the technology may match the system used for Skywalker’s new hand.
An experimental robot hand, for example, can turn the pages of a book, tie a shoelace, play a piano, and turn a screwdriver. The device was developed through research in bionics, a combination of biology and electronics.
Other devices already in use are agile enough to grip a golf club and play the cello. The devices are called myoelectric limbs (“myo” is the Latin word for muscle). When the artificial arm is attached, electrodes connect the person’s existing muscle to the device. When the muscle tenses in response to a signal from the brain, the muscle’s chemically produced electricity is transmitted through the electrodes to the mechanical arm, commanding the desired movement.
A new artificial leg is made from carbon-graphite with an inner metal bar. The leg lets the attached foot bend naturally, so the person who uses it walks and runs with more natural movement than older models allowed.
