Robots with T-ray technology to spot and remove cancer tumors in £8 million project
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-06/uow-rwt060421.php
"This is a whole new area of diagnostics, like how MRI in the 1980s revolutionised medical imaging. I think this is a chance for terahertz combined with robotics to give us that greater accuracy. Even though we are still building evidence, there seems to be a lot of pieces of the jigsaw that make logical sense."
Professor Pickwell-MacPherson adds: "If we can give a quantitative answer using our technology that would be great, and ultimately that will speed up the throughput of patients. That in turn will reduce waiting times and costs, it will mean that the surgical procedures can be better planned and done more efficiently, the number of follow-up procedures can be reduced, then that has implications financially to the NHS.
"This area is up and coming and terahertz robotics is becoming a hot topic. It has long been suggested that THz technology could be used for cancer detection and this project will push the technology forward to make it a reality. We hope that by demonstrating its application to skin and colon cancers we will open up the door to applying the technology to benefit other cancers too and transform cancer treatment protocols."
Professor Pietro Valdastri of the University of Leeds said: "Robotics is increasingly used in the operating theatre as it brings superior accuracy and unload some of the burden of the procedure from the surgeon. At Leeds, we are developing the next generation of surgical robots to detect colorectal cancer earlier and remove it more effectively. Adding THz perception capabilities to our robots is a new exciting avenue of research that has the potential to improve cancer patient quality of life in the next 5 to 10 years."