This could make TLT's process even easier... Scientists have developed a camera that can see through the human body.
The camera is designed to help doctors track medical tools known as endoscopes that are used to investigate a range of internal conditions.
The new device is able to detect sources of light inside the body, such as the illuminated tip of the endoscope’s long flexible tube.
Light detection
Until now, it has not been possible to track where an endoscope is located in the body in order to guide it to the right place without using X-rays or other expensive methods
Light from the endoscope can pass through the body, but it usually scatters or bounces off tissues and organs rather than travelling straight through.
This makes it nearly impossible to get a clear picture of where the endoscope is.
Images from a new camera that can detect tiny traces of light through the body’s tissues. Here, the camera is detecting light emitted from a medical device known as an optical endomicroscope whilst in use in sheep lungs. Image on left shows light emitted from the tip of the endomicroscope, revealing its precise location in the lungs. Right image shows the picture that would be obtained using a conventional camera, with light scattered through the structures of the lung. Advanced technology
The new camera takes advantage of advanced technology that can detect individual particles of light, called photons.
Experts have integrated thousands of single photon detectors onto a silicon chip, similar to that found in a digital camera.
Sensitive
The technology is so sensitive that it can detect the tiny traces of light that pass through the body’s tissue from the light of the endoscope.
It can also record the time taken for light to pass through the body, allowing the device to also detect the scattered light.
Medical camera sees through the body