A patient at Baptist Hospital has suffered from colon cancer.

Next to her gall bladder is what many long considered to be an inoperable lesion.

That is until last week...when the Baptist Hospital received their new NanoKnife system.

"We're able to treat that lesion that up until now, we would have just had to leave alone and let grow and eventually lead to her demise," says Dr. David Hays, a radiology consultant.

Dr. Hays says that lesion was too close to her gall bladder to operate on.

But the NanoKnife allows Dr. Hays to insert needle-like probes into the lesion which fire off a series of electrical pulses into cancerous cells.

"Those electrical signals open up the cell membranes,” says Dr. Hays, “when enough electricity is applied, they don't close back up, the cell dies."

And that can destroy the lesion or tumor.

Standard treatment methods can use extreme heat or radiation which not only kills the cancer cells, but also all of the healthy tissue and blood vessels around them.

The new technology is precise to say the least.

"It's not a magical bullet, but from a surgical standpoint, it's about as close as you can get," says Dr. Hays.

And as for the patient on Tuesday, her procedure went well.

Thanks to the mininal damage caused by the treatment, she will likely be home by Wednesday.

"The patients get over this a lot easier," says Dr. Hays.

Click here to read more about the NanoKnife technology available at Baptist.