TEDxBaghdad 2011 - Ahmed Ali Al-Bahrani
The brain, which is relatively small, is responsible for the principal functions of the human body such as movement, speech, and hearing. The brain controls all of that. So if there is any injury or damage to the brain bodily functions are affected, which may manifest as an impairment or a permanent loss of function. This is an image of the brain and you can see the complexity of its structure and how the blood vessels are widely spread. For this reason, operating on the brain should be done with extreme caution. When a tumor develops in the brain, whether large or small, it must be dealt with carefully. A doctor usually uses CT scan images to locate the tumor and define its dimensions. Magnetic resonance imaging also helps ascertain the location and size of the tumor to guide its removal. One might think that this solves the problem. The tumor is clearly recognizable in the image so it would seem that the doctor would only have to remove it. However, if we look at an image of a tumor this is the image of a tumor, and zoom in on it we will be able to see an overlap in the colors of the tumor cells and the normal surrounding cells. In this ‘overlap’ area, there is more than one type of cell. One might think that this is not a concern and the surrounding cells can also be removed in order to be sure that the problem area is completely eradicated. This is not right because those cells belong to the brain and are incapable of regenerating themselves. This means that if they are removed, their loss may cause an impairment in normal bodily functions. My colleague, Saif Dawood, and I have designed a simple software program to resolve this dilemma. In this second image, you can see the tumor its structure is unclear. It overlaps with the surrounding tissue making it indistinguishable. Not only is its shape unclear, its borders are also undefined. So what did our program do? It helped us identify the tumor’s general shape with more accuracy. We were able to determine its dimensions. We were able to minimize the area of overlap with other tissue. So while there were parts that we were not able to distinguish here, we are now able to do so over here. We can now differentiate the image of the tumor cells from the normal cells. With this software program, what would we be facilitating for surgeons? We are making it easier for surgeons to see the contours of the tumor with more precision giving them more flexibility during surgery. And in case the need arises to remove any additional cells, they would be far less in number than we witnessed in the first image where the number of overlapping cells was far greater. If we zoom in on this image, we will see that this tumor which we have been able to identify has very small projections that are somewhat unclear using the usual imaging methods and the surgeon might inadvertently miss some of these cancerous cells. This requires precision and must be given the utmost attention and focus. So we have been able to establish that with this simple software program and help achieve this level of precision. Using this program, we would be able to save tremendous amounts of money thousands, maybe millions of dollars and facilitate the work of surgeons in the excision of tumors. This is number one. Number two, using very simple tools, in this case a computer and our program, we can make such an innovation available to everyone, anywhere. It can ultimately assist a surgeon to discover the dimensions, borders, and overlapping regions of the diseased tissue without having to use cutting-edge machinery. I am not saying that we do not want to use them, no. I mean where these tools are unavailable what is a surgeon or a doctor to do in this case? This is our solution and by the will of God, it will prove useful and will serve the community. Thank you