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Show o )) by Corey W. Grua Public Info. Chairman, ( Uintah Co. Unit Amer. Cancer Soc-r Besses Cancer exams on the inside QUESTION: Is surgery the only way to find interior cancer? ANSWER: It used to be, but not any .more. I recently read an article in the National Geographic about the new directions of a technique called fiber .optics. This technique will change the 'way we diagnose cancer and talk on . the telephone too. Fiberscopes are thin, lighted, flexible 'Ctubes that are inserted into the mouth or jather openings to examine the stomach, vcoIon, bladder, and lungs. Organs like tthe spleen and liver, which once were "accessible only through major surgery, fcan now be observed with fiberscopes by threading the scope through a small in-cision in-cision in the patient's abdomen. The physician peers through the scope much like you would look into a "telescope for a clear view of what's go-, go-, ing on inside the body. It reminds you of ' Isaac Asimov's book, "The Fantastic .'Voyage." In this story men were miniaturized and sent into a human Cbody. Television cameras can even be . attached to the fiberscope allowing different dif-ferent views for a larger audience in the operating room. Doctors can even manipulate some surgical instruments i through an adjoining tube. . The other realm of fiber science is "'discovering that a single fiber, when '.Jleamed with a lazer can transmit 200 books, letter by letter, in one second. Times are changing. |