Performing cancer surgery is tough. Surgeons have to distinguish cancer cells from healthy cells with high powered microscopes, but even that can be hard to do. Now, there are new glasses, developed by Washington University that could make it a whole lot easier.

The glasses make cancer cells glow blue, after the patient is injected with a special dye that targets the cancer cells. Because cancer cells are so hard to spot, it is not uncommon for patients to require a second surgery to cut out the cancer that the surgeon missed the first time around.



These glasses could fix all of that and hopefully it eliminates the need for follow up surgery said Dr. Julie Margenthaler, a breast surgeon at WashU.

Last year, Dr. Zoltan Takats invented the so-called iKnife system—essentially, a sophisticated scalpel equipped with a mass spectrometer that literally sniffs out cancer cells. While WashU's glasses are too new to be named, the iKnife is already being used to save lives in the United Kingdom. Imagine pairing the two together. Cancer, we're coming for you. [WashU]