Locking onto a moving target can be as difficult in the operating room as it is on the battlefield. Using cruise missile technology, medical physicists have now developed a radiosurgery device that adapts to the patient's smallest movement. That way, it delivers intense beams of radiation directly into a tumor without damaging healthy tissue. The device, called Cyberknife, is allowing neurosurgeons to treat spinal tumors that would be impossible to operate with conventional surgery.
