Slice of Health brings you the latest and best news from the world of healthcare.

Today, we take a look at the latest advancements in healthcare. These promise a much improved and better mode of healthcare for patients in hospitals, homes, and palliative care.

Advancement #1: Robots Taking Over Surgery

The use of robots in complicated, risky procedures like surgeries may sound like the stuff sci-fi movies are made of, but they’re a reality today!

Recent surgical robots are designed to carry out surgeries with minimal invasion, which is great news for patients. They only need to make a single incision, or port. What this translates into for surgery patients: less pain, and faster recovery.

Advancement #2: Getting Closer To A Vaccine For Diabetes Type 1

Type 1 diabetes is a rarer type of the disease. Here, your own body’s immune system prevents your pancreas from producing insulin, a hormone essential in helping your body absorb glucose.

This vaccine will enter the human testing phase in 2018, and it’s a very promising prospect. It can also help protect your body against diseases like colds, myocarditis, meningitis, and also ear infections.

This isn’t available in 2017, but we sure have something to look forward to this year!

Advancement #3: Biopsies Won’t Always Require Tissues

Biopsies have always been a painful procedure, where a column of tissue is physically extracted from your body.

Liquid biopsies are a new and revolutionary method of genetic testing that use a patient’s bodily fluids such as blood, plasma, serum or urine instead of extracting tissue painfully. This technology makes painful biopsies considerably less painful.

Advancement #4: Fluorescent Lighting In Endoscopy

A fluorescent dye called indocyanine has been making waves in the department of endoscopy.

In endoscopy, doctor insert a flexible tube with a camera on it to check for malignant tissues in that area. The green indocyanine imaging can highlight malignant tissue quite effectively for your surgeon, who can then easily spot and remove any tumors/lesions you may have.

The future looks bright for healthcare today. These 4 are only a few key examples of a number of technological advancements in the field of medicine and especially healthcare.

References:

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/life/entertainment/story/2017/oct/10/ask-doctor/453195/

https://www.sciencealert.com/this-vaccine-could-prevent-many-cases-of-type-1-diabetes