In recent years brachytherapy treatment, an internal radiation therapy that delivers hollow metallic rods (known as seeds) full of radioactive material directly into or near cancerous tumors, has allowed doctors to deliver higher doses of radiation to more specific areas of the body compared with conventional radiation therapy that projects radiation from a machine outside the body.

A multi-disciplinary team of scientists at GE Global Research (Niskayuna, New York), the technology development arm for GE, have combined an array of sensing and analytical capabilities, including motion analysis, thermal profiling, image classification/segmentation, 3-D object reconstruction, and vapor detection into a single medical sensing device to assess and monitor the progression of pressure ulcers, commonly called bed sores.