Seng Tiong Ho is a professor with many academic publications on lasers, photonic integrated circuits, and photonics technology. In the following article, Seng Tiong Ho discusses the remarkable possibilities that photonics brings to the realm of healthcare and its potential to revolutionize patient outcomes.
Originally starting life in the physics world, photonics rapidly made its way into life sciences, thanks to its many uses in biological and medical research. The technology, involving the interaction of light or electromagnetic waves on living organisms and cells, has made profound advancements in recent years.
As the years tick by, photonics is expected to expand, with new tools coming to the healthcare market at unprecedented rates.
Seng Tiong Ho says that from less-invasive procedures to automation to exceptional diagnostics capabilities, medicine wouldn’t be what it is today without this breakthrough technology.
Seng Tiong Ho Highlights Photonics in Women’s Health
Historically, women’s health diagnostics were woefully invasive, with many finding them embarrassing and uncomfortable.
Seng Tiong Ho says that even basic processes were invasive, causing too many women to delay examinations, thus missing early detection of life-threatening illness. Regardless of the area — fantastic healthcare accessibility or lack thereof — all reports cited discomfort and embarrassment as a major factor in their treatment-seeking decision.
However, photonics has (thankfully) flipped that on its head.
The most impactful breakthrough in this niche is the ultrasound device used in obstetrics, urology, breast cancer screenings, and gynecology.
Seng Tiong Ho explains that this isn’t the only technology brought about photonics — fluorescence imaging also plays a huge role in identifying the source of diseases, especially breast cancer. Typically, these diagnostic devices are low-cost, increasing their accessibility and boosting the chances of early detection.
And the future in this sphere looks even brighter. Experts suggest photonic medicine in women’s health is leaning toward the development of optical biopsy resources. Such methods will entirely eliminate patient discomfort, ensuring preventative care is a more apt fix to female health problems.
Automating Medical Procedures and Remarkable Surgical Guidance
Seng Tiong Ho says that many devices used within the medical field are the results of a collaboration between photonics, biotechnology, and biomedical engineering. From biomarker detection to surgical guidance tools, the discipline teamwork has created positive waves throughout the medical community.
Machine vision tech utilizes laser scanning so automated instruments can make accurately informed decisions. While the most notable are autonomous vehicles, robotics, and manufacturing devices, machine vision technology is rapidly permeating the healthcare space.
At its most basic form, this photonic-led tech takes camera, light-based imaging, and ultrasound forms, offering high quality pictures to the professional working on the patient.
But in its more advanced form, VR headsets and software offer realistic training environments for studying surgeons. With sensory feedback provided as they utilize the surgical instruments, the technology is ensuring properly prepared professionals boasting improved accuracy hit the hospitals from universities reports Seng Tiong Ho.
Diagnosing Diseases Becomes More Accurate than Ever Before
The last two decades has seen photonic technologies used increasingly to selectively and sensitively discover disease-specific biomarkers, metabolic biomarkers, metabolites, and pathogens within bodily fluids, cell composition, and tissues.
Seng Tiong Ho explains that in the disease-diagnostic context, photonics use lasers to deliver light inside the tissue and optics/electro-optical sensors to discover refraction, scattering, diffraction, or absorption of said light.
Clinical setups use a variety of optical imaging methods to find malignancies, with the most widely utilized being the microscopy, spectroscopy, endoscopy, and the optical coherence tomography (OCT).
Some methods using all the above-mentioned technologies are quickly gaining prevalence to ensure accurate imaging of:
- Metabolism
- Cellular composition
- Blood flow alterations
- Structural changes related to disease
- Molecular processes within organisms
Seng Tiong Ho notes that even more recent advancements mean fluorescence endoscopies are now able to differentiate tiny tumors of just one millimeter in diameter from healthy tissues. The technology uses peptide and nonparticulate probes that attach to tumor biomarkers with unparalleled specificity, making them perfect for detecting cancer early.
Designing and Researching Treatments by Harnessing the Power of Photonics
Spectroscopic studies inspire drug design and the overarching field of medical research. Without photonics, neither would exist and industry participants applaud the technology for the perspective change it’s brought to diseases.
Seng Tiong Ho explains that accurate imaging provides exceptionally precise overviews of how diseases affect organic processes and human cells. The benefits of such accuracy? Enabling researchers to study how particular bacteria, drugs, or viruses behave at the cellular level, which allows for the creation of effective treatments.
It’s spectroscopy that has given the field more in depth, informative, and simpler lab testing of biological samples.
