It looks like it's running Windows XP.
Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
81–90 of 101 posts
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#82A future iteration of this product should be a household item that you use it during your morning routine, even before brushing your teeth. Preventative measures like this should be more widely available and built into peoples everyday routines.
Ah, we are getting ahead of ourselves. This isn't a preventative measure. It is a diagnostic device. The distinction is important because what will become increasingly apparent is we don't have good tools to deal with cancer when it is detected very early. One of the major problems is working out which of these 'detection events' is going to progress into clinically meaningful disease. We can't just take out (or even biopsy) the prostate of everyone with a hit.
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#83A future iteration of this product should be a household item that you use it during your morning routine, even before brushing your teeth. Preventative measures like this should be more widely available and built into peoples everyday routines.
Ah, we are getting ahead of ourselves. This isn't a preventative measure. It is a diagnostic device. The distinction is important because what will become increasingly apparent is we don't have good tools to deal with cancer when it is detected very early. One of the major problems is working out which of these 'detection events' is going to progress into clinically meaningful disease. We can't just take out (or even…
At early stages you can simply blast it with chemo/radiation before it manifests into something intreatable though.
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#84A future iteration of this product should be a household item that you use it during your morning routine, even before brushing your teeth. Preventative measures like this should be more widely available and built into peoples everyday routines.
Wait a second. That HEAVILY depends on the different aspects of detection here. For starters, mammography is not performed every year for women at any age. Why?
First, you need near perfect results on 1) false AND true positives and 2) false AND true negatives. Otherwise statistics will screw your results over hard. [1]
Second, the benefits need to outweigh the issues with invasive testing (taking your blood every day, 365 days, for XX years is bound to introduce some risk of infection etc...).
[1] https://www.cancer.org/cancer/breast-cancer/screening-tests-...
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah, we are getting ahead of ourselves. This isn't a preventative measure. It is a diagnostic device. The distinction is important because what will become increasingly apparent is we don't have good tools to deal with cancer when it is detected very early. One of the major problems is working out which of these 'detection events' is going to progress into clinically meaningful disease. We can't just take out (or even…
At early stages you can simply blast it with chemo/radiation before it manifests into something intreatable though.
If you are certain that it is malignant cancer and not one of the other billion tumor forms that may not even spread.
Otherwise, you are exposing people to side effects of radiation and chemotherapy without them needing it.
This is called overtreatment and sought to be avoided for a reason.
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just telling millions of people per year they might have cancer... say the MRI is booked for 2 weeks out... which they are then going to majorly stress about the whole time regardless of how low you tell them the risk is - is going to have some crazy societal impact.
I typically have several MRIs per year. I'm not claustrophobic and don't stress about them, but sometimes MRIs cause me physical discomfort, even without contrast. With contrast, its slightly worse, it seems. I think its related to a genetic disorder that causes me to retain high levels of iron, but I have nothing to back this up. This discomfort in the MRI comes in the form of waves of warmth I feel throughout my ab…
The warmth is caused by the RF pulses and has nothing to do with the magnet or iron levels. Basically the scanner behaves the same as a microwave oven.
That's why you have to enter the patient weight and size before scanning, in order to keep the SAR within acceptable values and limit body heating.
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quite rare to jump straight to an MRI - a chest MRI is a half hour deal. More common to do a CT Chest which has a 1:500 risk of causing cancer
Does this mean that out of the 5000 false positives, 10 people will actually GET cancer by doing a follow-up CT exam?
We don't really know. Data that show X dose of radiation increases the probability of developing cancer by Y% is based on studies on survivors of atomic blasts. The number of people exposed to an amount of radiation equivalent to a handful of CT scans is pretty small relative to the effect size that's claimed, so there is reason to be skeptical.
See https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-much-ct-scans... for a jumping off point into this type of research.
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#88Sounds familiar...
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#89Elsewhere it was mentioned it was 90% sensitivity and 95% selectivity which is not that good enough for something serious as cancer. Hopefully they can improve on it.
Medical tests are always going to be messy, because biology is messy. It's ultimately up to the physician to order tests and interpret the results. Here's a list of tests for diagnosing breast cancer, none of which approach the numbers you are hoping for (a needle biopsy is only performed once a mass is found) http://www.getthediagnosis.org/diagnosis/Breast_Cancer.htm I just stumbled across this site, but you can bro…
CA-125 test for ovarian cancer is similar. "Best we've got", not "what we'd like to have".
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#90Does this suggest Theranos could have been viable?