Latest Medical Technology

• A Catalyst Worth More Than Gold

  10Oct
  Categories: News and Updates Comments: 0

  

  A new strategy in designing and manufacturing novel pharmaceutical compounds is being developed in the University of Buffalo. A rhodium-based catalyst of 1 gram can produce 10,000 grams of a pharmaceutical product. This catalyst – rhodium metal – is ten times more expensive than gold. It is available only through chemical supply companies.

  This new synthesis strategy generated compounds that react to diseases such as cancer, and inflammatory and microbial diseases.

  The new method allows a molecule to be transformed from a simple structure to a more complex drug-like material. The resulting compounds are mirror-images, but are closely studied as opposite mirror-images have different biological effects which may be harmful.

  Read the full article on this new technology.

• Brain cooler for heart attack victims?

  10Sep
  Categories: Management and Treatment, News and Updates Comments: 0

  
  A portable ‘brain cooler’ could help save the lives of many cardiac patients for whom current treatment is ineffective.

  Thousands of people suffer heart attacks each year, but only 5 to 10 per cent of people are successfully resuscitated. A defibrillator machine, which delivers electric shocks, is usually used to get the heart to restart.

  Brain cooling is being heralded as the technology with the greatest potential to improve survival rates.

  Two studies in 2002, published in the New England Journal Of Medicine, established the importance of body cooling after cardiac arrest. Researchers found patients whose bodies were cooled had improved survival rates and that their brains functioned better in the months following the arrest.

  A new portable cooling device, called the BeneChill, can be used conveniently and easily, even without medical training.

  The device was invented by Dr Denise Barbut, a UK-trained neurologist now living in New York. She took advantage of the unique anatomy of the nose, which contains many blood vessels designed to warm the air you breathe in.

  The device uses perfluorochemicals (PFCs) chemicals already widely used in eye surgery and for liquid ventilation of the lungs that are stored in small canisters and delivered to the nose in a fine mist through a nasal tube inserted into each nostril.

  Once PFCs hit the back of the nose, they evaporate and remove heat from the nose. The resulting temperature drop transfers directly to the brain, which lies adjacent to the nasal cavity. BeneChill can achieve a two degree drop in one hour up to six times faster than many other available methods.

  (Source)

• Avandia May Raise Osteoporosis Risk

  10Jul
  Categories: Information, News and Updates Comments: 0

  
  The popular diabetes drug marketed as Avandia may increase bone thinning, a discovery that could help explain why diabetics can have an increased risk of fractures.

  New research raises the possibility that long-term treatment with rosiglitazone, as Avandia is also called, could lead to osteoporosis. The diabetes drug is used to improved response to insulin.

  Researchers found that in mice, the drug increased the activity of the cells that degrade bones, according to a report in this week’s online issue of Nature Medicine.

  The finding “has led to a better understanding of the challenges associated with long-term treatment of patients with Type II diabetes,” said Ronald M. Evans of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., lead author of the report.

  “The long-term use of rosiglitazone should be cautious in patients with higher risk of fractures such as older women,” he added. Using it in combination with anti-osteoporosis drugs could be beneficial, he said.

  (Source)

• Crestor Fails Heart-Failure Study

  10May
  Categories: News and Updates, Pharmaceuticals Comments: 0

  
  The results of a recent study has shown that heart-failure patients who are given AstraZeneca’s Crestor and standard drugs are just as likely to have heart attacks and strokes or die of cardiovascular problems as those on standard therapy alone.
  
  AstraZeneca has hoped to establish Crestor as the first cholesterol-lowering statin to show clear benefits in treating elderly patients with the chronic heart condition.

  Results of a 5,000-patient study showed Crestor was no better than a placebo, although it did cut levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol and C-reactive protein and reduced hospitalizations for cardiovascular causes. AstraZeneca said that the study had been “novel and challenging” and, though unsuccessful, had established Crestor’s safety in heart-failure patients.

  (Source)

• Stereo mammography a big leap in breast imaging

  10Mar
  Categories: Diagnostics, Imaging, News and Updates Comments: 0

  
  Stereoscopic digital mammography, a new diagnostic technique capable of producing three-dimensional, in-depth views of breast tissue, could significantly reduce the number of women who are recalled for additional tests following routine screening mammography. Results of a clinical trial being conducted at Emory University Breast Clinic in Atlanta were presented Thursday at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

  Stereoscopic digital mammography consists of two digital x-ray images of the breast acquired from two different points of view separated by about eight degrees. When the images are viewed on a stereo display workstation, the radiologist is able to see the internal structure of the breast in three dimensions. In the ongoing clinical trial, researchers use a full-field digital mammography unit modified to take stereo pairs of images. The workstation enables the mammographer to fuse the stereo image pair and to view the breast in depth.

  In the study, stereo mammography reduced false positives by 49%. This huge drop in percentage has strong implications with regard to needless cost in time and money. BBN Technologies and Planar Systems developed the stereo display workstation used in the trial.

  (Source)

• ETRI’s new mobile sensor system for Senior Citizens

  19Aug
  Categories: News and Updates Comments: 0

  

  A mobile phone sensor system for the senior citizens have been developed by Korea’s Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute. With this new system, family members, doctors and nurses can be quickly informed about the situation of the elderly. Through GPS technology that links the hospital’s computer to the sensor carried on the patient’s belt. The computer automatically calls the phone of the patient to check if the person is hurt. The sensor detects sudden movements like a fall or bumping into something. Studies are being undergone so that the product will be put under the operation of mobile phone companies so that any signal from the sensor can then be sent to any mobile phone.

• 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 »

• Studying the Arctic Produces Pocket-Sized MRI Scanner

  30Jan
  Categories: Diagnostics, Information, News and Updates Comments: 0

  The mention of MRI machines bring to mind the gargantuan machines in hospitals that weigh a couple of tons and guzzle up huge amounts of electricity. But that’s a thing of the past for research in the arctic used for studying ice cores from deep the frozen wasteland has produced a small and portable version of the imaging tool enough to be brought by doctors for field operations should they be necessary. MRI’s have been used to save millions of lives with the detailed cross sections of the human body they can produce but only if they can be done in time to see what’s wrong with a patient and that takes time. many patients die because of no access to the imaging technology that is not only rare in some parts of the world but prohibitively very expensive.
  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.

• Gene therapy normalizes brain function in Parkinson’s patients

  04Jun
  Categories: Diagnostics, Imaging, News and Updates Comments: 0

  
  Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans of the brains of Parkinson’s patients given an experimental gene therapy to improve muscular control showed that the treatment worked and had lasting results.

  The study was conducted by researchers from The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research and the Weill Cornell Medical Center in the US. In the study, genes for glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) were delivered into the subthalamic nucleus of the brain in a dozen Parkinson’s patients using a viral carrier. The genes were delivered to only one side of the brain to reduce risk and to better assess the treatment.

  The results from the brain scan study on the gene therapy patients show that only the motor networks were altered by the therapy. This study demonstrates that PET scanning can be a valuable marker in testing novel therapies for Parkinson’s disease.

  (Source)