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Latest Medical Technology

• Cancer Resistance

  10Jun
  Categories: Developmental stage Comments: 0

  

  Researchers at the University of Kentucky has created a cancer-resistant mouse. They have found in the prostate a tumor-suppressor gene called Par-4. It kills only cancer cells, and spares normal cells from damage. They have discovered that mice with this gene do not develop tumors. There is a great potential in developing treatment for cancer that do not have the side-effects experienced by patients undergoing chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

  The mice under study have been bred and observed, and so far, the results showed that the gene did not harm the next generations of mice. It will still be a long way before this is developed and tested on humans, but it is the way forward.

  (reference)

• New blood biomarker to predict cancer spread

  10Feb
  Categories: Developmental stage, Diagnostics Comments: 0

  Recent research came up with a new blood biomarker that has a high accuracy of predicting the spread of prostate cancer to other parts of the body through the lymph nodes. Such spreading of cancer cells are usually not detected by conventional imaging methods like CT scans. This new blood test measures the level of endoglin, a plasma biomarker which was also studied to predict the spread of colon and breast cancer.

  The levels of endoglin in the blood were associated with increased risk of cancer cells spreading to the lymph nodes. Each 1ng/mL increase of plasma endoglin increases the risk of cancer spread by 17 percent.

  (source)

• Spinal Cord Injury, Stem Cell and Nanotechnology

  10Dec
  Categories: Developmental stage Comments: 0

  
  Scar tissues develop around a spinal cord injury, blocking neuron fibers that are supposed to repair the damaged site. Researchers from Northwestern University developed a nano-engineered gel that prevents the formation of scar tissue, allowing neuron stem cells to penetrate the inured site and grow nerve fibers. The gel also instructs stem cells to produce myelin, instead of producing scar tissues.

  This technology has shown positive results with mice experiments. A mice that has spinal cord injury was able to use their hind legs in walking six weeks after being injected with the gel. Although not all treatments in mice works in humans, there is still a possibility that it could work.

  (source)

• Non-surgical heart valve replacement

  04Nov
  Categories: Developmental stage Comments: 0

  

  Patients with congenital heart disease will have a chance at a treatment without a major open heart surgery. Cardiologists at the Rush University Medical Center has developed a minimally-invasive trans-catheter valve replacement. Patients involved in a clinical trial had this implant, and are presently recovering. This gives hope to patients that would otherwise undergo multiple open heart surgeries. The valve replacement procedure uses a bovine peri-cardial heart valve that is compressed into a balloon as small as a pencil, threaded from a major vein in the leg into the circulatory system, and is deployed across the pulmonary valve.

  The US Food and Drug Administration conditionally approved the trial in 2007.

  (source)

• Technology Advances Lung Cancer Treatment – Again!

  18Apr
  Categories: Developmental stage, Information, Management and Treatment Comments: 0

  When it comes to lung cancer, it is sometimes possible to treat and even remove diseased tissue to prevent further advancement of the disease if screening happens to find it in the early stages of development. Like most cancers, early detection is key to higher survivability rates for the disease has not yet progressed to an advanced state. In lung cancer, there are small and there are large nodules, the later being more easily detected due to the size difference. Doctors have been experimenting with micro-coils, surgical materials that are almost on the nano-scale that mimics a small magnet when bombarded with radio waves making small nodules that used to elude current scanning technologies making detection and targeting easier. Removal of such infected tissue in the early stages is the best way to rid the lungs of already diseased nodules, and getting most of them out, small and large the best possible way to properly cure the disease. Read more »

• Nano-Bubbles – Killing Cancer Cells

  18Mar
  Categories: Developmental stage, Management and Treatment, News and Updates Comments: 0

  To curing many cancers in the world for more and more of these technological wonders of the extremely small world are making their debut to a clinic near you. These microscopic particles have been found to be very effective alternatives to current technology which attacks all cells that are encountered by the potent medication, healthy or cancerous. This indiscriminate attack results in the undesirable side-effects such as nausea and others that are the main detractors for such treatment options. The development of nano-bubbles that encapsulate these cancer cell killing drugs are being developed and have been successful in the lab in targeting specific cells that needs to be killed. The drug is encased in materials that searches cancer cells attaching themselves and releasing their payload minimizing collateral damage in what can be compared to as a surgical strike with precision munitions in war time. Read more »

• Engineers Have Big Ideas for the Latest in Medical Scanners

  14Aug
  Categories: Developmental stage, Diagnostics, Hearing Technology, Imaging, Information, Management and Treatment, News and Updates, Pharmaceuticals, Vaccines Comments: 2

  
  Image Source:www.ex-astris-scientia.org

  Rutherford-Appleton Laboratories have developed one of the World´s largest imagers that could form the heart of future medical scanners. The new technology will allow doctors to produce more sensitive and faster images of the human body at a lower-cost to the healthcare profession.

  The innovative technology, which has been developed as part of the £4.5m Basic Technology MI-3 Consortium, will help in providing instant analysis of medical screening tests and the early detection of cancer.

  Easier to use and faster than the imagers used in current body scanners, and with very large active pixel sensors with an imaging area of approximately 6cm square, the technology has been specifically developed to meet demanding clinical applications such as x-ray imaging and mammography. This silicon imager is about 15 times larger in area than the latest Intel processors.

  The next step of the project is to produce wafer-scale imagers which can produce images that approach the width of the human torso. This will eliminate the need for expensive and inefficient lenses and so enable lower-cost, more sensitive and faster medical imaging systems. Very large active pixel sensors could soon be making a major impact on medical imaging by further reducing the need for the old technology of film. The UK is a World-lead in such sensors for scientific and medical applications and this is a lead that UK intends to maintain.

• Nutrigenomics

  02Jul
  Categories: Developmental stage Comments: 0

  

  Nutrigenomics is the study of molecular relationships between nutrition and the response of genes. (wikipedia) It focuses on the effects of nutrients to gene development and the overall effect to human health. The aim is to develop a personalized nutrition program based on an individual’s genotype, as certain diseases are caused by changes in the DNA.

  Nutrients are seen by the cells as signals, and the cell’s sensor system interprets this signal. This process then changes gene, protein expression and metabolite production depending on the level of nutrient it senses. Nutrigenomics aims to identify these patterns and effects called dietary signatures.

  This research is still in its early stages, but is a promising field that gives hope for the future.

  (source)

  Useful Links:
  http://nutrigenomics.ucdavis.edu/
  http://www.nutrigenomics.nl/

  http://www.nugo.org/everyone

• Thornton Adjustable Positioner: Your New Lullabye to a Sound Sleep

  23May
  Categories: Developmental stage, News and Updates Comments: 1

  

  If you are suffering from sleep deprivation, produces a cow-like snoring and maintains a compulsion to be sleepy all throughout the day, it’s not normal. Science calls this disorder Sleep Apnea (apnea means “without breath”) wherein the breathing patterns of a person repeatedly halts and starts when one is sleeping. The latest treatment against Sleep Apnea is called TAP or Thornton Adjustable Positioner, a customized oral appliance that the patient wears during sleep. By holding and keeping the lower jaw forward and not allowing the tongue and the throat tissues to collapse to the airway, it prevents snoring and sleep apnea.

• SUPER X-RAY: Painless and Cheaper Angiography

  15May
  Categories: Developmental stage, News and Updates Comments: 0

  

  If you know anyone who has experienced Angiography, you know that he will never recount the story of the experience without cringing or deep facial expression expressing pain — both the physical and the financial pain, mind you. And now comes Super X-ray that saves one from the angiogram fatality caused by bacterial invasion and exposure to radiation that may eventually lead to cancer. According to studies, this new product will eliminate the use of some 1.3M cardiac catheterizations per annum. Although there have been debates on the radiation level this new technique can emit, more scientists have favored it for its accuracy.