surgery

While mastectomies save many women from breast cancer, they often leave the subject feeling depressed, unattractive and ashamed. Some women opt for breast implants in an attempt to regain their lost positive body image, but an Australian doctor has now developed a device that allows women to regrow their lost breast using their own tissue.

Emergency medical care for soldiers wounded on the battlefield has come a long way since Hawkeye and Hot Lips. But for Special Forces troopers operating deep behind enemy lines, that care often remains out of reach. Blood loss in particular makes seconds count, and imperils commandos operating far away from friendly bases.

To help with the problem of blood loss from traumatic wounds, the military has started field-testing a device more Mandalorian than M.A.S.H.: a plasma knife.

Transforming surgical scalpels into imaging tools could provide instant feedback on suspicious tumors or tissues. European researchers plan for the new imaging tools to enter clinical trials next month.

The concept combines an elecroscalpel with a mass spectrometer to profile the molecular structures of whatever the scalpel happens to cut. It carries out its molecular analysis by using "surgical smoke," or gaseous ions produced as a waste product of the electroscalpels, which requires removal anyway during surgery.

This simulator goes far beyond the olden days of the board game "Operation." Last month, for the first time, neurosurgeons rehearsed on a 3-D model of a patient's brain just hours before removing a brain tumor for real.

Imagine going in for a brain procedure where you have to endure neither an invasive, cut-you-up procedure nor radiation treatment. When it was finished, you could enjoy a glass of bubbly with your doctors, and go home shortly thereafter. It's close to becoming a reality.

Imagine going for a decade without any hands and then suddenly having a new set to work with. That's what happened to Jeff Kepner, the first person to receive a double hand transplant in the U.S.

What: Fluorescence-Assisted Resection and Exploration, a new technique that makes cancerous tissue glow during surgery, one cell at a time
Where: Boston
Why: Of the 1.5 million cases of cancer diagnosed annually, nearly all of them require surgery.
Wow: Pinpoints the spread of cancer in seconds

Last March, a French surgical team proved that face transplants weren't just for Nic Cage and John Travolta. Then, in December, an American team successfully performed the first face transplant on this side of the Atlantic. And yesterday, we got our first look at the results.