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Digital
images from the 1994 body scans of two cadavers have helped doctors screen
patients for certain diseases.
The two
cadavers (a 39-year-old male from Texas and a 59-year-old woman from
Maryland) were donated to science and put to good use at the Visible Human
Project at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland. Both
bodies received two scannings: a CAT-scan and an MRI. Their bodies were
then frozen to 90 degrees below zero and sliced into very thin sections:
the man's slices were 1 millimeter thick, the woman's slices were 1/3
millimeter thick. Scientists then took photographs of the sections.
The scans and the photos helped create the computerized mummies.
In turn,
computer software developed from the mummies now allows doctors to perform
a "virtual colonoscopy" on patients in much less time and much
more cheaply. And software is currently being developed to allow doctors
to practice various surgical procedures--before the actual operation (kind
of a trial run).
The
software is now available. Visible Human CD
Male 2.0 and
Visible Human CD Female 1.1
cost about $495
for both and are published by Research Systems. Labeling of body parts is
incomplete, however. So far, the software producers have labeled about
70,000 parts of the man. The woman's body parts, though, remain
unlabeled.
(From the
Medical Tribune News Service and the New York Times, 7/8/99,
"Computers Open a Window on the Body") |
