No-hole surgery: no keyhole, yet surgeons can now still operate under your skin (2023)

I think the bigger idea behind this research, which was not mentioned, is the fact that the pointing of the the multiple beams directed by the transducer can not only be used to heat up a specific point inside the body (which in their example was an "ink" that was used for creating 3D structures well below the tissue), but the fact that this could be used for things like removal of plaques, blockages, destruction of fat/lipid cells in vivo... So things like stents and angioplasty's which are currently used to open up clogged arteries in cardiac patients to prevent heart attacks, could be done in vivo, the same way they are describing in the article, but without the need to use an "ink"... So this technology definitely has multiple uses. It could also be used to target plaques in brain tissue embedded deep in the brain to directly remove amyloid plaques to treat dementia, depression, etc patients...Obviously also used to target tumor cells anywhere inside the body without using chemotherapy/radiation.

I dislike the name "ink" for a plastic or resin compound with which we are going to saturate regions of our bodies. It reminds me of George Carlin talking about euphemisms.

This is fascinating - but the HN headline could be more informative:<p>3D printing technique builds structures through tissues<p>would suffice.

Here is the paper.<p>Xiao Kuang et al. Self-enhancing sono-inks enable deep-penetration acoustic volumetric printing. Science 382, 1148-1155 (2023)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.science.org&#x2F;doi&#x2F;10.1126&#x2F;science.adi1563" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.science.org&#x2F;doi&#x2F;10.1126&#x2F;science.adi1563</a>

&gt; The world of medicine would be transformed<p>Look I know I&#x27;m being obtuse, and a Dingus, but I&#x27;m so tired of the silly hype.<p>It wouldn&#x27;t transform the whole world of medicine. It would maybe change a small part of specific surgeries.<p>I&#x27;ve never had an implant surgery and I do take pills and other medicines daily.<p>It would affect implant surgeries, it would not affect my vitamin d pill.

It will be interesting to see such techniques for normal 3d printing without support structures.

Could they 3D print in such a way as to make pre-fabricated joint implants a thing of the past?

I&#x27;m no topologist, but I don&#x27;t think they&#x27;re going to be able to place that catheter without at least one hole.

Sorry to send dense, but it says No-hole surgery. How then, is the &#x27;ink&#x27; delivered to the right location for this to work?

(2023)

tldr; they use a transducer (a gun that uses focused ultrasound) to solidify a special ink (injected beforehand) which is ultrasound and temperature sensitive allowing them to create solid structures&#x2F;implants of desired shape