New Patent Details Apple's Reserach Into The Cancer Therapy Field

Apple's ambition in the medical field goes beyond adding new features to the Apple Watch or iPhone. The photomedicine technology it develops may be used to treat eye diseases and even cancers, a new patent from the Cupertino tech giant reveals.


The patent "Area scanning photomedicine device and method," may be extremely versatile in medical applications, but has only one main purpose, "is a system and method for treating a lesion on the target tissue."

Today, the superficial lesions (lesions on or near the target tissue surface) can be treated with light. Notwithstanding, in the paper, Apple lists a variety of uses for this patent, including photodynamic therapy that deals with light-sensitive drugs and utilizes light sources to kill cancer cells.

Apple said that light can also be used in "gynecology, digestion, and thoracic surgery", and the use is much more than that. "Although the details of the approaches vary due to the anatomical differences presented, the fundamental underpinnings are the same."

The patent document asserts that "one must provide treatment light to the targeted lesion. To date, this has been done primarily with the broad-brush application of light to the lesion and its surrounding tissue. While this has the advantage of being straightforward, it also limits the ultimate clinical efficacy by increasing the side effect profile."

Apple aims to create a device that incorporates various systems. First of all, it is an imaging device that can visualize "target tissue with lesions;" once the imaging is taken, it will be upgraded into a target device that incorporates light sources and scanning devices.

Image Courtesy: Huaiyi Huang at Sun Yat-Sen University

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