If you saw yesterday’s post, “Discovery“, you may recall that I was a bit of a science geek as a teenager. One requirement for this distinction, next to bringing a brick-sized scientific calculator to math class, was to love all things Star Trek–the television series, films, and my die-cast model of the U.S.S. Enterprise. In late November 1986, two-and-a-half months after my brain surgery, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was released. It had a scene I’ll never forget. Captain Kirk and his crew have traveled back in time to 1986 to stop a massive environmental crisis from occurring. Chekov, unconscious from a head injury, is lying on a table in an operating room and being prepped for surgery. Kirk and his wry chief medical officer, Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy, manage to locate Chekov, and when Bones sees what the doctors are about to do, screams “My God, man, drilling holes in his head is not the answer!”. Having gone through it myself, I couldn’t agree more, but a new approach to attacking brain cancer might—at some point in the future—make surgery obsolete.

Dr. Kuo-Chen Wei and his colleagues in the brain tumor division at Chang Gung Memorial Hospitalin Taiwan are experimenting with a new approach to treating brain cancer that does not involve a craniotomy—cutting through the skull to access and surgically remove the tumor. Instead, they use ultrasonic beams to move tiny, magnetized chemotherapy particles into the brain, which they then guide to the tumor via a magnetic field. Chemotherapy, as we all know, is highly toxic, and this limits the amount that can be administered—when it is sent body-wide through the bloodstream. Because this new method delivers chemotherapy particles only to the tumor area, however, much higher doses can be used with limited damage to healthy brain tissue and low toxicity for the body.

When I saw Dr. McCoy on the big screen castigating the surgeons for their approach to treating brain cancer, I felt it wouldn’t be long before the actions taken to save my life would be viewed as archaic. We’ve made great strides in this past quarter-century, and I believe that highly effective cancer treatments—with few negative side-effects—are not far off. If Dr. McCoy came back in time and ran into Dr. Wei, I’m sure he’d pour him a glass of Romulan Ale.