Houston Radiation Oncologist Uses Video Game Technology To Zap Cancer

For years, Dr. Brian Butler, radiation oncologist at The Methodist Hospital in Houston, would be the first to tell you that video games are a waste of time. Shouldn't kids be reading, keeping their grades up and taking part in activities that keep them fit?

Butler now argues we have a lot to learn from those who immerse themselves in a world of video game technology. It is this technology that is revolutionizing radiation therapy for cancer. When an Ivy League college was unable to do it, he turned to a group of Dallas-based video game programmers in their 20s to create a system for him that takes targeted cancer therapy to another level.

Cancer therapy is now a video game, and the make believe shoot 'em up is not make believe at all. The enemy is cancer. The growth patterns of cancer are the "supply lines." And, because the program enables doctors to pinpoint the location of the cancer with the precision of a sniper rifle, it spares surrounding healthy tissue and cells from damage.

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