A New Microscope Uses Light to “Cut” Through Tissue Samples and Find Cancer
28th June 2017
The ultimate goal of a lumpectomy is to remove all the cancerous tissue from a person’s breast while saving as much of the healthy tissue as possible. But that’s even harder than it sounds. Without the ability to look at tissue under a microscope, it’s currently impossible to tell whether the area surrounding a tumor contains cancerous cells or not. Surgeons deal with this by taking samples from around the removed tumor, waiting for a pathologist to look at them, and performing additional surgeries if they turn out to be cancerous. This is not only time consuming and expensive, but also extremely stressful for the patient.