Week 4: Anuj

 This was another interesting week with a few robotic surgeries shadowing, a few cystoscopy visualizations, and more progress on the wide-view cystoscope tip design. A new surgery that I watched was a partial nephrectomy, where a part of the kidney with a tumor was removed. The tumor measured roughly 3cm in diameter, and only this part was dissected, so that approximately 95% of the kidney volume was still left intact and unharmed after the surgery. Another surgery involved prostate removal due to tumor growth. While dissecting the prostate from the bladder side, some tissue was removed and sent to pathology during the surgery. After approximately 30 minutes, while the other end of the prostate connected with the urethra was being cut, the results from the pathology came back positive for sarcoma. This allowed the surgeons to remove more of the bladder mass to get rid of the cancerous area. Confirming the presence of cancer margin spread during the surgery within 30 minutes is fascinating, as it prevents future cancer removal surgeries and gives more confidence in full tumor removal from the patient's body. However, this is another opportunity for developing imaging tools that could potentially scan the tissue/glands/organ surface during the surgery for cancer clusters or cells in high-resolution, so that the cancer removal can be more real-time. For the wide-view cystoscopy project, I worked on some theory to check the working mechanism of the helical scanning system. Some parts arrived, and the other parts are being 3D printed; therefore, I am excited to test the prototype next week.