I'm not a doctor but have been dealing with cancer in the family. I think we will soon see much more use of fine-needle techniques in cancer treatment in novel ways.

Perhaps the next big thing will be an oil-and-gas engineer adapting drilling, guiding and visualisation technologies to the very small scale.

Directly killing the cancer cells is often futile because you can't kill them all, but we could also use this tech to:

* take samples of the the tumour and its microenvironment to analyse and guide treatment

* inject biological agents into tumours (e.g. T-Vec)

* inject "broad-spectrum" immunotherapies (ipilimumab, various cytokines) which may be too dangerous to use systemically

* insert radioactive grains or auger targets as an adjunct to enhance immunotherapy

* apply local electroporation to enhance the uptake of chemotherapy and breakdown of tumour cells, again to enhance the immune response (e.g. ImmunoPulse)

* take samples in order to grow personalised treatments in the lab for later injection (e.g. dendritic cell therapy)

* provide safer options for dealing with complications like pericardial effusions.