Vascular Surgery
Centerline Biomedical, a company based in Cleveland, Ohio, landed FDA clearance for its Intra-Operative Positioning System (IOPS). The product provides physicians with a radiation-free way to navigate through vasculature during minimally invasive procedures. Currently, X-ray fluoroscopy is used to track where minimally invasive instruments are in a patient's body. Danger results from ionizing radiation, but also from the low-resolution 2D grayscale images that clinicians have to work with. These can make it challenging to understand the location and position of instruments, often leading to long procedures, difficulty completing them, or...
Potrero Medical Receives CE Mark for the Accuryn® Monitoring System.
July 15th, 2019 by Potrero Medical
The company received its FDA clearance in 2016 when it transformed the traditional urinary catheter into a smart sensing platform that helps to accurately monitor vital signs in real-time, such as urine output (UO) and intra-abdominal pressure (IAP). Traditional urinary catheters have issues draining urine from the bladder, causing inaccurate UO measurements. Using active drain line clearance, the Accuryn® Monitoring System automatically clears the drainage line as needed. Hayward, California - July 15, 2019 – Potrero Medical has received CE mark in the European Union for its technology platform, the...
Lipid Nanoparticles Deliver CRISPR/Cas9 into Organs with High Efficiency
July 15th, 2019 by Conn Hastings
Researchers at Tufts University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed a new lipid nanoparticle which can deliver CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing tools into organs with high efficiency, suggesting that the system is promising for clinical applications. The CRISPR/Cas9 system is currently being investigated as a way to treat a variety of diseases with a genetic basis, including Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Huntington’s, and sickle cell disease. While the system has significant promise, there are some issues that need to be resolved before it can be used clinically. CRISPR/Cas9 is a...
Researchers from Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland have developed new nanoparticles for theranostic (therapeutic and diagnostic) applications. Their work describes the synthesis of these particles and demonstrates that by stimulating at a long, safe wavelength, the nanoparticles can cleave bonds that hold onto drugs and release them into the body. This is an exciting development for the field of nanomedicine, and may one day lead to improved detection and treatment of many diseases, including cancer. Nanoparticles have been developed in the past for theranostic applications, but they tended...
Carbon Dioxide-Based Cancer Cryoablation Probe for Low-Resource Regions
July 15th, 2019 by Conn Hastings
Undergraduate researchers at John Hopkins University have developed a cryoablation probe for breast cancer, which uses carbon dioxide instead of argon, making it more affordable and accessible for use in low resource regions. Treatments for women with breast cancer are scarce in poorer places. In fact, survival rates can be as low as 12% for breast cancer patients in places such as The Gambia, compared with 90% in the United States. Treatments that are commonly used in wealthier countries, such as surgery or chemotherapy, are either too expensive or...
A two-year-old girl has received a deep brain stimulation (DBS) device to treat her dystonia. The condition, which results in painful random muscle movements, spasms, and the like, can lead to severe limitations on a child's development and overall quality of life. A team at the Evelina London Children's Hospital worked together to develop the necessary anesthesia protocols and surgical procedure. One of the issues that the team had to consider was that DBS systems are made for much larger patients, and so the device had to be positioned and...
Scientists at MIT have taken inspiration from cucumber tendrils, the helical offshoots that grab onto fences and anything else they can, to create artificial muscle-like fibers. The new fibers can quickly contract and expand, and can lift objects many times their weight. The hope is that these may one day find their way into medical devices to help power ailing hearts, to give arm and leg prostheses more strength and agility, and to restore injured muscle tissue. Using a fiber-drawing technique, these mini muscles are created with different polymers, each...
Neurolief, an Israeli company, has won European regulatory clearance (CE Mark) for its Relivion system to treat migraines. Intended as an over-the-counter product, the non-invasive Relivion device delivers pulses of electric current into the patient's brain. The headset is designed to stimulate the occipital and trigeminal nerves and the amount and type of modulation can be controlled via an app on a paired smartphone. "I believe that the Relivion device from Neurolief has great potential to improve acute migraine therapy," said Alan Rapoport, M.D., clinical professor of neurology at The...
Custom 3D Printed Robotic Surgical Instruments for Every Patient
July 12th, 2019 by Medgadget Editors
Today's arthroscopic instruments that are used to perform minimally invasive procedures on hips, knees, and other parts of the body, are rigid devices. They also tend to be one-size-fits-all solutions that surgeons have to use on patients with varied anatomies. Now, a team at the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision are working on being able to make custom robotic instruments that align with a given patient's anatomy. The idea is that a knee, for example, would be imaged using an MRI machine and the resulting scan used to define where...
Diagnosing rheumatoid (RA) arthritis often involves subjective assessment of patient hands, X-rays, blood tests, and ultrasound imaging. Researchers at Birmingham University in the UK have now developed a system that they hope will offer a more objective way of diagnosing RA. Their system uses infrared spectroscopy and 3D imaging to generate volumetric maps of blood within a patient's hand. Conventional optical imaging is used to scan the hand and create a model of it. Subsequently, infrared light is illuminated through each of the fingers and what comes out is evaluated....
Two years ago the FDA issued the first clearance for a high-field MRI scanner, the Siemens MAGNETOM Terra. Featuring a 7 Tesla magnet, the device generates a magnetic field more than twice the strength of the 3 Tesla scanners that were previously the most powerful for clinical use. Now, a team of researchers, headed by a group at Massachusetts General Hospital, has used the machine to scan a donated brain for nearly five days. The result is an incredible visualization of a complete brain at a resolution of almost .1...
Researchers from Texas A&M University have developed a new wireless device that allows for direct illumination during surgeries. This is an exciting development that can improve surgical illumination, make many existing procedures easier to perform, and potentially reduce complication rates. Regardless of how skilled a physician is, there are some risks associated with surgery. One of the factors that increases risk is if the surgical area is poorly illuminated. This can be due to obstructions from the surrounding anatomy, or poor overhead lighting. A new system combines the surgical patty,...
Medicine
Potrero Medical Receives CE Mark for the Accuryn® Monitoring System.
The company received its FDA clearance in
2016 when it
transformed the traditional urinary catheter into a smart sensing platform that
helps to accurately monitor...
July 15th, 2019
Harmonic Nanoparticles for Theranostic Applications
Researchers from Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland have developed new nanoparticles for theranostic (therapeutic and diagnostic)...
July 15th, 2019
Relivion Headset for Migraines Cleared in Europe
Neurolief, an Israeli company, has won European regulatory clearance (CE Mark) for its Relivion system to treat migraines.
Intended as an over-the-counter...
July 12th, 2019
Cardiology
Centerline's Radiation-Free IOPS System for Minimally Invasive Procedures
Centerline Biomedical, a company based in Cleveland, Ohio, landed FDA clearance for its Intra-Operative Positioning System (IOPS). The product provides physicians...
July 15th, 2019
Potrero Medical Receives CE Mark for the Accuryn® Monitoring System.
The company received its FDA clearance in
2016 when it
transformed the traditional urinary catheter into a smart sensing platform that
helps to accurately monitor...
July 15th, 2019
Blood Flow Measurement Using Tiny LED Catheter
Measuring blood flow is important during a variety of surgical procedures, as well as in intensive care settings. Typically, this is performed intermittently, so...
July 10th, 2019
Surgery
Carbon Dioxide-Based Cancer Cryoablation Probe for Low-Resource Regions
Undergraduate
researchers at John Hopkins University have developed a cryoablation probe for
breast cancer, which uses carbon dioxide instead of argon, making it...
July 15th, 2019
Custom 3D Printed Robotic Surgical Instruments for Every Patient
Today's arthroscopic instruments that are used to perform minimally invasive procedures on hips, knees, and other parts of the body, are rigid devices. They also...
July 12th, 2019
New Device to Improve Surgical Illumination
Researchers from Texas A&M University have developed a new wireless device that allows for direct illumination during surgeries. This is an exciting development...
July 11th, 2019
Emergency Medicine
Low Cost Medical Devices for Low-Resource Regions: Interview with Prof. Saad Bhamla, Georgia Tech
Advances in medical technology continue apace, with sophisticated new medical devices and therapies becoming available on an ongoing basis. However, medical...
July 1st, 2019
Canon Releases Aplio a-series Budget Ultrasounds
Canon Medical is releasing a new line of ultrasounds, called the Aplio a-series. Presented at this year's American Society of Echocardiography's annual meeting, the...
June 26th, 2019
AI System Can Identify Cardiac Arrest by Listening to Breathing
Researchers at the University of Washington have used machine learning to teach an AI system to identify when someone is having a cardiac arrest. The system learned...
June 20th, 2019
Radiology
Centerline's Radiation-Free IOPS System for Minimally Invasive Procedures
Centerline Biomedical, a company based in Cleveland, Ohio, landed FDA clearance for its Intra-Operative Positioning System (IOPS). The product provides physicians...
July 15th, 2019
Harmonic Nanoparticles for Theranostic Applications
Researchers from Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland have developed new nanoparticles for theranostic (therapeutic and diagnostic)...
July 15th, 2019
Five Day Long Scan of Complete Brain Using Ultra Powerful MRI
Two years ago the FDA issued the first clearance for a high-field MRI scanner, the Siemens MAGNETOM Terra. Featuring a 7 Tesla magnet, the device generates a...
July 11th, 2019
Anesthesiology
Potrero Medical Receives CE Mark for the Accuryn® Monitoring System.
The company received its FDA clearance in
2016 when it
transformed the traditional urinary catheter into a smart sensing platform that
helps to accurately monitor...
July 15th, 2019
Radiation-Free Guidance for Vascular Catheters Using Smart Fiber Optics
While modern catheters can reach into various parts of the body, navigating there remains a major challenge. Fluoroscopes that emit X-rays are used to constantly...
July 2nd, 2019
Canon Releases Aplio a-series Budget Ultrasounds
Canon Medical is releasing a new line of ultrasounds, called the Aplio a-series. Presented at this year's American Society of Echocardiography's annual meeting, the...
June 26th, 2019
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