Friday, December 31, 2004
Google News
Filed under:
Just in time for New Year's: a gift from Google!
Hi Michael,Thank you again for your submission. We have reviewed http://www.medgadget.com and will be including it in Google News in the near future. You should be able to find your articles in Google News within four to six weeks.
Thank you for providing your articles to Google News.
Regards,
The Google Team
Happy New Year to All!
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Thursday, December 30, 2004
Visicu eICU
Filed under: Anesthesiology
, Critical Care
, Medicine
, Surgery
, Telemedicine
... Kaleida Health System, is among an expanding number of hospital systems adopting "enhanced intensive care" technology - known as eICU - that allows critical care doctors and nurses to monitor dozens of patients at different hospitals simultaneously, much like an air traffic controller keeps track of multiple planes.
From the Kaleida control station Monday, health professionals were monitoring 58 patients at two hospitals via screens that displayed patients' diagnosis and progress, doctors' notes and real-time vital statistics like heart rate and blood pressure. The remote caregivers alerted their onsite counterparts to changes or potential problems through videoconferencing at the nurses' stations.
Kaleida, which expects to bring its three other hospitals online in the spring, stressed the technology is meant to enhance, not replace, onsite care by allowing doctors to more quickly catch and respond to trouble.
More at Visicu, the company that has created eICU technology...
(hat tip: symtym)
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PD ACCESS
Filed under: Anesthesiology
, Medicine
How about combining an IV needle with a Doppler ultrasound system, so those blind needle sticks are a little bit more precise? Escalon Vascular Access Inc. has done it:
If you can't see or feel the vessel, the surest path to vascular access is through your ears. With PD ACCESS you can hear arterial or venous flow and direct the needle to first-stick access, saving time and money.Doppler-guided PD ACCESS is ideal for all types of patients, from pediatrics to adults. Its portable size allows for quick and easy use in all parts of the hospital, from the CCU to the OR to the Cath Lab. It enables you to distinguish between veins and arteries, so you can avoid puncturing the wrong vessel while attempting to access the correct one.
PD ACCESS utilizes a hand-held monitor and a Doppler transducer located at the tip of the access needle. Sizes range from 18 gauge bare needles to 24 gauge ONC devices, to address a full range of applications.
Placing a piezoelectric crystal for ultrasound guidance into a needle tip and creating a working system is quite a task! Welcome to the 21st century, indeed.
Escalon Vascular Access Inc. even provides sound files of intravenous and intraarterial blood flows for your listening or learning pleasure. Enjoy!
(hat tip: Anesthesiology News)
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StadiumGal
Filed under: OTC
This product is far, far beyond FDA's reach. The ultimate in OTC comfort! From the company's website:
Once again we have adopted a product that has already been used in the Health Care Industry, and provided it to those who hate the waiting. It is called a Female Urinary Pouch. The pouch is Non-Latex, and contains an Odor-Barrier pouch film. At the bottom of the pouch is a Convenience Drain that connects to the leg bag system (worn on the inner calf). It is one size fits all, and is cut to fit one's needs. Application is explained in the instruction guide.
Don't forget to check out Stadium Pal.
(hat tip: Wired, which recommends these products for compulsive computer gamers)
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Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Obese and Opaque
Filed under: Society
Think about it: difficult terrain makes an exploration difficult. So there are no surprizes here:
Radiologists have their own term for inconclusive tests due to obesity: "limited by body habitus" abbreviated as LBBH. (Habitus refers to body build.) Too much fat, they say, makes it difficult or impossible to tell whether a patient has a kidney obstruction, to distinguish a benign fibroid tumor from ovarian cancer or to see whether a fetal heart is developing properly."There's a lot of attention paid to the health effects of being obese, but what the general public doesn't understand is how much it makes proper diagnosis difficult," said Levon N. Nazarian, professor of radiology at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. "Every stage of an obese person's medical care is compromised because of their size, and that includes diagnosis and treatment."
And the manufacturer's response?
Medical device companies say they are doing just that to cope with the projected tsunami of obese patients in the next decade. By 2010, if present trends continue, 50 percent of Americans could be classified as obese.Siemens Medical Solutions has recently rolled out a new MRI with a wider opening and has devised an ultrasound system capable of greater depth penetration for what it delicately deems "the technically difficult patient."
Each imaging technology has its own obesity-related limitations...
It is absolutely true: there are actual physical limitations to each imaging modality. For example, in ultrasound technology, there is a natural trade off between tissue penetration and image resolution. Lowering the frequency of ultrasound to penetrate deeper, will make the image more fuzzy, and less diagnostic. So there is only so much device manufacturers can do...
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New drugs, devices of 2004
Filed under:
Newsday reviews ground-breaking drugs and devices of 2004. However it is amazing how such a young blog as this one (< 1 month old), has already reported about many of the technologies covered in the roundup!
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VNUS Closure Procedure
Filed under: Dermatology
, Vascular Surgery
From a recent press release by the Washington University School of Medicine:
Jeffrey Petersen, M.D., assistant professor of medicine at the Washington University School of Medicine wanted to help Kurowski improve her quality of life and suggested that she undergo the VNUS Closure procedure to treat her varicose veins.The innovative procedure is a minimally invasive treatment for superficial venous reflux.
Normally, Peterson says, veins carry blood from the extremities toward the heart. With varicose veins, the blood flows backward, pooling impure and acidic blood in the legs.
The Closure procedure uses radiofrequency or laser heat placed directly into the wall of the saphenous vein, which runs from the ankle to the groin. Over time, faulty valves in the saphenous vein can result in unattractive, bulging and painful varicose veins. The radiofrequency or heat causes the vein wall to collapse, cutting off the source of blood.
During the procedure, a mixture of intravenous saline solution, lidocaine (a local anesthetic) and epinephrine (a drug that contracts blood vessels) helps reduce blood loss and postoperative bruising while providing anesthesia.
First, Petersen inserts a thin catheter into the damaged vein through a small incision. Using an ultrasonic guide, the catheter is manipulated up the vein, and radiofrequency energy is delivered to the vein wall, causing it to heat, collapse and seal shut.
Once the diseased vein is closed, healthy veins take over, and normal blood flow returns to the leg, allowing the swelling, pain and discoloration to improve noticeably.
Last year, a study in the Journal of Vascular Surgery compared vein stripping to the VNUS Closure procedure by evaluating procedure-related complications, overall patient recuperation and quality-of-life issues. In every measurable category, patients who underwent the closure procedure had better outcomes.
More info is available at VNUS Medical Technologies...
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"Helical Branch Device"
Filed under: Radiology
, Vascular Surgery
WNBC reports about a new endovascular aneurysm device developed at The Cleveland Clinic:
It's a complex problem that until now has been fixed with a risky surgery involving a long recovery."You really want to design these devices so they conform to the patient, so they're flexible," said Dr. Roy Greenberg, talking about the stents used to open up the vulnerable arteries.
But now researchers at The Cleveland Clinic have developed new technology that, for the first time, uses minimally-invasive surgery to treat multiple aneurysms in the midsection of the body.
Small flexible implants that act as sleeves are put inside the arteries and connected. The blood re-routes through these sleeves, which helps shrink the aneurysms. By connecting these sleeves, doctors can treat aneurysms in several different arteries-something they couldn't do before.
"I would estimate that about 90 to 95 percent of patients with aneurysms are candidates for this less-invasive therapy," said Greenberg, of The Cleveland Clinic.
A search of the Cleveland Clinic website returns nothing. Any ideas out there about the device? Any pics of it on the internet yet?
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Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Signals From Deep Inside
Filed under: Cardiac Surgery
, Cardiology
, Radiology
, Vascular Surgery
Globes [online] reports:
Remon Medical's technology is integrated into minute implants, requiring no antenna, wires, or connecting leads, that allow a tiny device implanted deep inside the body to communicate wirelessly with other implanted devices and external systems.Remon Medical continues its clinical trial of the Remon Impressure, a device that offers on-demand, non-invasive means to monitor intra-aneurysm pressures following endo-vascular graft procedures. The device was implanted and is being used successfully in 21 patients in the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.
Remon Medical also develops the Remon HeartLook, a device for measurement of pulmonary artery pressure, which is the most important hemodynamic indicator in heart failure. A one-time, minimally invasive catheter-based procedure allows HeartLook unlimited, non-invasive home-based monitoring of a CHF patient's hemodynamic status.
So how does the company's technology work? The website of Remon Medical of Caesarea, Israel describes the proprietary technology:
The Company's core technology utilizes acoustic waves, which both energize and communicate with the implanted device. The advantage of this approach is that acoustic waves transmit effectively inside the body (through soft tissue, bones and fluids), and are not absorbed by the intervening tissue. Acoustic communication requires very little energy to achieve a high signal-to-noise ratio when accessing locations deep inside the body.The implant is energized and activated on-demand via an external transducer. The implant converts the acoustic waves into electrical energy via its proprietary energy exchanger.
As the system's internal transducer operates at a low resonance frequency, Remon's implant is omni-directional, insensitive to the exact direction of the external transducer.
More coolness at Remon Medical...
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The LifeVest Conspiracy
Filed under: Cardiology
, Society
Conspiracy moonbats over at Bellaciao.org have finally cracked the mystery of Pres. Bush's hump that was visible during the debates with Sen. Kerry. The analysis is so unbiased and is so complex that even the Framingham Study is mentioned in the analysis. In their professional opinion, the device is LifeVest, manufactured by LIFECOR.
From LIFECOR's website:
The LifeVest is the first wearable defibrillator. Unlike an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), the LifeVest is worn outside the body rather than implanted in the chest. This device continuously monitors the patient's heart with dry, non-adhesive sensing electrodes to detect life-threatening abnormal heart rhythms. If a life-threatening rhythm is detected, the device alerts the patient prior to delivering a shock, and thus allows a conscious patient to disarm the shock. If the patient is unconscious, the device releases a gel over the therapy electrodes and delivers an electrical shock to restore normal rhythm.
Good thing that the device did not go off. Presidential defibrillation during the debate would truly be a shocking national tragedy.
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Monday, December 27, 2004
"The Architecture and Design of Man and Woman"
Filed under: Art
, Radiology
, Society
Wired reports about art based on real imaging studies:
In 1543, Andreas Vesalius stunned the world with detailed woodcuts that graphically revealed the inside of the human body. Some 460 years later, Alexander Tsiaras takes a much closer look in his new book, The Architecture and Design of Man and Woman. Vesalius based his images on crude dissection, but Tsiaras employs a more intricate technique: He layers 3-D high-resolution data - ultrasounds, CT and MRI scans, confocal laser scanning microscopy, and x-ray crystallography - to produce realistic and telescoping representations that burst through the skin and isolate the tiniest cells. While all the composites are scientifically correct, Tsiaras used software, built by his company Anatomical Travelogue, to add light and color. "My responsibility as scientist and journalist is to provide accurate information," says Tsiaras. "My desire as artist is to make the images beautiful."
More at Anatomical Travelogue...
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Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)
Filed under: Neurology
, Psychiatry
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a procedure in which electrical activity of the brain is changed by an alternating magnetic field, through magnetic induction. Simply speaking, a magnetic field from a conducting coil is applied to the area of interest in the brain. The magnetic field induces micro currents in the brain. According to some, this procedure can have numerous clinical benefits.
The Associated Press covers repetitive TMS (rTMS):
She thought of trying magnetic stimulation because MRI brain scans showed that in aphasia patients with a stroke in the left side of the brain, an area on the right side became over-active when the patients tried to describe a picture. Could this be interfering with the brain's attempts to find a word? She approached Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone, an rTMS expert at Harvard Medical School, because she knew magnetic stimulation can paradoxically be used to calm brain circuits. They launched a study together.Poduje was one of four patients in the study, all of whom had suffered a stroke at least five years earlier. Researchers focused on their ability to look at drawings of common things like a hammer, cup or a tree, and say what they were seeing.
For the experimental treatment, the researchers pressed an electromagnetic coil to the right temples of their patients, near the over-active brain area, and applied magnetic pulses for 20 minutes, five days a week, for two weeks.
That brought surprisingly durable results. Poduje, for example, went from being able to name what she was seeing in only four out of 20 drawings before the experiment to seven by two months later, and 12 by eight months afterward.
As a group, the four patients showed significant continuing improvement two months and even eight months after the magnetic treatments ended.
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Cochlear Implant by Advanced Bionics
Filed under: ENT
The Portsmouth Herald interviews Dr. Donald Eddington, director of the Cochlear Implant Research lab at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, to find his take on the cochlear implant from Advanced Bionics. His bottom line is that the device is far from perfect. The clinical response to the device is very patient specific. However it is surely a promising technology and it will improve. More here...
In the picture above:
1. Sound processor
-- captures sound from the environment
-- processes sound into digital information
-- transmits to the implant over a transmitting antenna, or headpiece, held in place by magnets in both the headpiece and implant
2. Implant
-- converts digital information into electrical signals
-- sends signals down tiny wires to the electrode array in the inner ear
3. Electrode array
-- delivers electrical signals through tiny contacts, or electrodes, to the hearing nerve
-- the hearing nerve carries the sound information to the brain, where it is heard
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Wanted: A Few Good... Programmers
Filed under: Emergency Medicine
, Military Medicine
According to an Associated Press report, The U.S. Army is interested in learning various special graphic effects enhanced by computer technology from ... the Hollywood motion picture industry. And the goal? To simulate combat injuries and to improve the training of U.S. military doctors. More here...
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Friday, December 24, 2004
Nintendo Surgeons
Filed under: Military Medicine
, Surgery
The Wired News covers Video Game/Entertainment Industry Technology and Medicine Conference (VEITMC '04):
Rosser looks like a football player and cracks jokes like a comic, but his job as a top surgeon and director of the Advanced Medical Technologies Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York is to find better ways to practice medicine. At the top of his list -- video games."Traditional academic surgeons look at what I do and thumb their noses," Rosser said at the first Video Game/Entertainment Industry Technology and Medicine Conference, sponsored by the U.S. Army's Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center, or TATRC, in early December.
Surgeons who play video games three hours a week have 37 percent fewer errors and accomplish tasks 27 percent faster, he says, basing his observation on results of tests using the video game Super Monkey Ball.
Video games also have much to offer the military, said Greg Mogel, a radiologist and director of the West Coast arm of TATRC, who spoke alongside Rosser at the conference held in Marina del Rey.
"You train as you fight and you fight as you train," he said.
TATRC demonstrated a program called STATCare, a virtual simulator for combat medics that lets them bandage wounds, apply tourniquets, administer intravenous fluids, inject medications and make all of the other assessments they would be required to do in an actual battlefield.
See more at VEITMC '04 website.
UPDATE (December 26, 2004): A software interface of STATCare can be seen in this image.
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Charite
Filed under: Neurological Surgery
, Orthopedic Surgery
The New York Times reports:
"It's the first revolutionary improvement in spine surgery since Harrington in the 1950's," said Dr. Bitan, referring to Paul Harrington, inventor of the tools that made spinal fusion a common treatment for a variety of serious back ailments.Artificial disks, which were introduced in Europe two decades ago, promise the same or better pain relief as spinal fusions, which protect degenerating natural disks from pressure by joining the vertebrae above and below the disk into a single immobile segment of bone. Their real advantage though, according to Dr. Bitan and other researchers, is that patients recover more quickly from insertion of disks, retain far more flexibility and are less likely to need further surgery than spinal fusion patients.
The Johnson & Johnson disk consists of cobalt-chromium endplates around high-density polyethylene. It is named Charite after the hospital in Berlin, where the first version of the device was created 20 years ago by Dr. Karen Buttner-Janz, a former East German Olympic medalist in gymnastics.
Some of the anecdotal evidence for the Charite is impressive. The first European recipient of a Charite disk is still playing tennis 20 years later, according to Dr. Bitan. And Jeffrey Lee Gibson, a 46-year-old stunt man who received a disk two years ago as part of the trial of Charite in the United States, said he left the hospital the day of the surgery and was able to perform a four-story stomach-first fall for the television show "Third Watch" 12 weeks later.
More on Charite from DePuy Spine.
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Vioxx Aftershocks
Filed under: Public Health
Did you think that approved medical devices are honky-dorry when it comes to safety and performance? Well, think again. According to a senior regulator at the Food and Drug Administration, 22% of medical device follow-up studies [are] left undone:
"It's not a pretty picture," said Daniel G. Schultz, director of the FDA's office of device evaluation, earlier this month at a conference in Waltham. Too many of these studies are treated as "an afterthought," he said.At a time when the FDA is under fire for its oversight of drugs like Vioxx and Celebrex, which prompted health concerns after they were approved, Schultz's comments show how companies that make products such as pacemakers and hearing aids can also expect more scrutiny.
Since Schultz has been pressing for more follow-up studies for over a year, his plans to improve the situation through public disclosure or bureaucratic reforms could be a model for the way the FDA treats drug companies in the future.
Exactly how much oversight the FDA has given to approved products is becoming a political issue. Post-approval studies are routine in theory and rare in practice, an open secret in the healthcare industry.
Scarry? You bet.
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Thursday, December 23, 2004
Deployable Polarized Light
Filed under: Emergency Medicine
The Navy is developing a new diagnostic tool to use in the field based on polarized light. From Military Medical Technology Online Edition:
Similar to the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency program to reduce the size of Global Positioning System devices from the size of a suitcase to hand-held size, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) is funding work to miniaturize a laboratory sized light-based clinical fluorescence polarimeter (FP) to a size compatible for field use. The Naval Institute for Dental and Biomedical Research in Great Lakes, IL, is leading the efforts under the ONR science and technology program for Future Naval Capabilities to furnish the miniaturized equipment and light-based fluorescence polarization assays to the fleet. The goal is to develop a system that can be used in a deployed setting and rapidly aid in the diagnosis of systemic disease, immunization status, exposure to drugs-of-abuse, therapeutic drugs, environmental, and food-borne threats.
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Season's Greetings to All
Filed under:
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» High Intensity Focused Ultrasound for AFib (December 23, 2004)
» Robotic Surgery for Female Infertility (December 23, 2004)
» The Jordy (December 21, 2004)
» i-Stat (December 21, 2004)
» iPods In The Hospital (December 20, 2004)
» Litebook (December 20, 2004)
» SonoPrep (December 19, 2004)
» Nervonix (December 19, 2004)
» Sushi Adhesive Bandages (December 18, 2004)
» ReadMyHeart ECG (December 17, 2004)
» Personal Health Status Monitor (December 16, 2004)
» VisualDx (December 16, 2004)
» Reliant Fraxel SR Laser (December 16, 2004)
» Pierced Eyeglasses (December 15, 2004)
» 'Nano-needle' (December 15, 2004)
» BioZ Dx (December 15, 2004)
» Q-Stress® version 3.5 (December 14, 2004)
» Endo-PAT2000 System (December 14, 2004)
» IGSonic (December 14, 2004)
» ExAblate 2000 (December 11, 2004)
» PillCam (December 11, 2004)
» impella® recover LV (December 11, 2004)
» T-Line Tensymeter (December 11, 2004)
» iE33 by Philips (December 11, 2004)
» Vital Positioning System (December 11, 2004)
» Evalve Percutaneous MV Repair System (December 11, 2004)
» Vein Contrast Enhancer (December 11, 2004)
» EECP (December 11, 2004)
» Vivid i (December 11, 2004)
» Stereotaxis (December 10, 2004)
» CardioMeter (December 10, 2004)
» CorCap (December 10, 2004)
» Native TEQ Dynamic Technology for ACUSON Sequoia; 8V3 Transducer (December 10, 2004)
» Philips HeartStart Home Automated External Defibrillator (AED) (December 10, 2004)
» ECG-Shirt (December 10, 2004)
» Toshiba Aplio xV (December 10, 2004)
» Surgichip (December 10, 2004)
» Titan (December 9, 2004)
» The Robot Scientist (December 9, 2004)
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