In a national climate tinged with the sour taste of stagnation and faltering progress, I find it most constructive to look to fields in which dynamism prevails as templates for positive change. For this reason and for the sake of stoking hope, I wish to discuss the recent advance in surgical technology called MarginProbe.

Brought to the public eye in a Wall Street Journal article last week, MarginProbe initially received FDA approval in December of 2012. It is designed to improve surgical accuracy in lumpectomies, or localized removal of cancerous tissue from the breast. In layman’s terms, a common issue with lumpectomy that can lead to tumor recurrence is removing tissue too conservatively; physicians must walk the tightrope between thoroughly excising the malignant growth and minimizing needless tissue removal from the patient. As explained by the MarginProbe product and study website, the device capitalizes on the “different electromagnetic properties” of cancer cells, which can be used to distinguish them from healthy cells upon exposure to different electric fields. Upon detecting remaining cancerous tissue during an operation, the MarginProbe notifies the health care team with a beep.

The device was the center of what the website claims was “one of the largest randomized, controlled trials of breast cancer margins” ever conducted, and the results are more than encouraging. As mentioned in the WSJ piece, the need for patients in the trial to go back under the knife dropped 56 percent as compared to those whose doctors did not use the MarginProbe. This translates to less cost, less pain, and less emotional strife for cancer patients and families – a resounding success in the pursuit of improving patients’ lives.

I chose to briefly highlight this innovation not for its novelty and inherent inspirational quality, but as a kind of guidebook. It is not entirely reasonable to expect that logistical details of an innovation in one field are translatable to that of another field, but the ingenuity and motivations tend to stem from common necessity and a shared desire to solve and grow. This is but a simple, albeit incredible, instance of the kind of progress we must study if, in the face of dashed hopes or stunted advancement, we are to surge forth unencumbered.

Contact Alizeh Ahmad at alizeha ‘at’ stanford.edu.