Algae-Based Microrobots Deliver Antibiotics within Lungs
Researchers at the University of California San Diego have developed a microrobot system to treat bacterial pneumonia. The microrobots consist of living algal cells that can swim very effectively in biological fluids, allowing them to navigate throughout the lungs and deliver drugs to difficult-to-reach areas. The algal cells are studded with antibiotic-loaded polymer spheres that are coated with cell membranes from neutrophils, which help them to neutralize inflammatory molecules that are released by bacteria in the lungs, providing a localized anti-inflammatory effect. In tests in mice with bacterial pneumonia, the micro...
Source: Medgadget - September 28, 2022 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Critical Care Materials Medicine Nanomedicine UCSD Source Type: blogs
Are early detection and treatment always best?
Throughout my medical career, I’ve heard statements like these:
Early detection offers the best chance of cure.
If you wait for symptoms, you’ve waited too long.
Knowledge is power, and the sooner you have the information, the better.
Over time, I’ve realized they are often untrue. Many health conditions go away on their own. In such cases, early testing may amount to wasted effort, time, and medical cost. Some testing is invasive and has a significant risk of complications. And minor abnormalities may lead to more testing. There’s also the anxiety of waiting for results, or learning you have an abnormality of unce...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - January 28, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Robert H. Shmerling, MD Tags: Back Pain Heart Health Managing your health care Prevention Screening Tests and procedures Source Type: blogs
Penicillin: the accident that saved many lives
Alexander Fleming in his laboratory, 1881 – 1955
There have been many happy accidents in science. Several of these were of great benefit to medicine.
For example, in 1895, a German physicist working with a cathode ray tube happened to place his hand in front of the rays and found that he could see his bones in the image projected onto the screen. Soon after that, the first X-ray images were produced.
There have been other instances where serendipity played a role in unearthing effective treatments against diseases.
THE FIND OF THE 20TH CENTURY
The most famous of these happy accidents is the discovery ...
Source: GIDEON blog - September 28, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Kristina Symes Tags: Microbiology News Source Type: blogs
Can AI diagnose COVID-19 on CT scans? Can humans?
Vidur Mahajan
Vasanth Venugopal
By VASANTH VENUGOPAL MD and VIDUR MAHAJAN MBBS, MBA
What can Artificial
Intelligence (AI) do?
AI can,
simply put, do two things – one, it can do what humans can do. These are tasks
like looking at CCTV cameras, detecting faces of people, or in this case, read
CT scans and identify ‘findings’ of pneumonia that radiologists can otherwise
also find – just that this happens automatically and fast. Two, AI can do
things that humans can’t do – like telling you the exact time it would take you
to go from point A to point B (i.e. Google maps), or like in this case,
diagnose C...
Source: The Health Care Blog - March 23, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Artificial Intelligence COVID-19 Health Tech AI coronavirus CT scans Pandemic Radiology Vasanth Venugopal Vidur Mahajan Source Type: blogs
As coronavirus spreads, many questions and some answers
The rapid spread of the coronavirus now called COVID-19 has sparked alarm worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a global health emergency, and many countries are grappling with a rise in confirmed cases. In the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is advising people to be prepared for disruptions to daily life that will be necessary if the coronavirus spreads within communities.
Below, we’re responding to a number of questions about COVID-19 raised by Harvard Health Blog readers. We hope to add further questions and update answers as reliable information becomes available.
Does t...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - February 27, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Todd Ellerin, MD Tags: Children's Health Cold and Flu Infectious diseases Men's Health Women's Health Source Type: blogs
Artificial Intelligence vs. Tuberculosis – Part 2
By SAURABH JHA, MD
Clever Hans
Preetham Srinivas, the head of the
chest radiograph project in Qure.ai, summoned Bhargava Reddy, Manoj Tadepalli, and
Tarun Raj to the meeting room.
“Get ready for an all-nighter, boys,”
said Preetham.
Qure’s scientists began investigating
the algorithm’s mysteriously high performance on chest radiographs from a new
hospital. To recap, the algorithm had an area under the receiver operating
characteristic curve (AUC) of 1 – that’s 100 % on multiple-choice question
test.
“Someone leaked the paper to AI,”
laughed Manoj.
“It’s an engineering college joke,...
Source: The Health Care Blog - January 24, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Artificial Intelligence Health Tech Health Technology @roguerad AI Saurabh Jha TB tuberculosis Source Type: blogs
Bad flu season predicted — did you get your shot?
What can we expect from the flu season this year? Unfortunately, many experts are predicting an active, and possibly severe, flu season. This projection is based on data from Australia, where the flu season is just wrapping up. Australia was hit early and hard by flu this year: over 300,000 patients had laboratory-confirmed influenza, a record number of cases. Flu outbreaks in the Southern Hemisphere happen during our summers, and they often give us a clue as to what we should expect when the flu lands on our shores in the fall.
Who should get the flu vaccine?
Basically, everybody over the age of 6 months, except for those...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - November 4, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Ross, MD, FIDSA Tags: Cold and Flu Health Prevention Vaccines Source Type: blogs
Everyone Is Having the Wrong Healthcare Debate
By STEVEN MERAHN, MD
In 1807, in an effort to spite the British and French for shipping interference (and forced recruitment of American citizens into military service), the United States Congress passed an Embargo Act, effectively shutting down trade with these two countries. Britain and France quickly found other trading partners; the US, then limited in our capacity to sell products outside our borders, was left with a devastated economy and a gaping hole in our face. It took only weeks before Congress passed a loophole; they repealed the act within 15 months of its passing. It was a great lesson in unintended co...
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 16, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Health Policy Politics Uncategorized Health care debate Health Care Reform Steven Merahn universal healthcare Source Type: blogs
Measles: The forgotten killer
As a medical student, the place I dreaded most was the ward at the children’s hospital where they kept the chronic ventilator patients. Unlike the other floors, where there was shouting and laughter and tears, and all the commotion and turbulence of youth, here it was dark and lifeless and eerie, with no sound except the hum of the ventilators, and the rattle of air being forced through plastic tubes. It was a place of failure and defeat, the desolate aftermath of some vast and tragic battle.
An unexpected aftermath of measles
My patient was a teenager who had been in a coma for years. His limbs had stubbornly twisted up...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - May 23, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Ross, MD, FIDSA Tags: Children's Health Infectious diseases Men's Health Vaccines Women's Health Source Type: blogs
The Doctor Who Thwarted the Charge of the General Medical Council – Part 1
By SAURABH JHA
After Dr. Hadiza Bawa-Garba was convicted for manslaughter for delayed diagnosis of fatal sepsis in Jack Adcock, a six-year-old boy who presented to Leicester Royal Infirmary with diarrhea and vomiting, she was referred to the Medical Practitioners Tribunal (MPT). The General Medical Council (GMC) is the professional regulatory body for physicians. But the MPT determines whether a physician is fit to practice. Though the tribunal is nested within the GMC and therefore within an earshot of its opinions, it is a decision-making body which is theoretically independent of the GMC.
The tribunal met in 2017, 6 ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 5, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: at RogueRad Tags: NHS #BawaGarba @roguerad Source Type: blogs
Tropical Travel Trouble 009 Humongous HIV Extravaganza
LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency medicine and critical care medical education blog
aka Tropical Travel Trouble 009
The diagnosis of HIV is no longer fatal and the term AIDS is becoming less frequent. In many countries, people with HIV are living longer than those with diabetes. This post will hopefully teach the basics of a complex disease and demystify some of the potential diseases you need to consider in those who are severely immunosuppressed. While trying to be comprehensive this post can not be exhaustive (as you can imagine any patient with a low ...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - July 7, 2018 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Amanda McConnell Tags: Clinical Cases Tropical Medicine AIDS art cryptococcoma cryptococcus HIV HIV1 HIV2 PEP PrEP TB toxoplasma tuberculoma Source Type: blogs
Vaccinations: More than just kid stuff
Follow me on Twitter @RobShmerling
This is the time of year when it’s important to think about flu vaccinations. And there’s good reason for that! The flu causes thousands of preventable hospitalizations and deaths each year.
But what about other vaccinations? Do you think of them as something for kids? You aren’t alone. And it’s true, a number of vaccinations are recommended for young children as well as preteens and teenagers. These vaccinations have provided an enormous benefit to public health by preventing diseases that were common and sometimes deadly in the past, including polio, rubella, and whooping cough....
Source: Harvard Health Blog - February 7, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Robert H. Shmerling, MD Tags: Health Infectious diseases Prevention Vaccines Source Type: blogs
This year ’s flu season: Public health catastrophe or par for the course?
Follow me on Twitter @JohnRossMD
If you think that there’s a lot of flu going around this January, you’re absolutely right. Every state except Hawaii is reporting widespread influenza activity, making for a lot of miserable people suffering from classic flu symptoms of cough, fever, headache, stuffy nose, and achy muscles. Hospitals across the United States have been flooded with flu patients. Matters have been made worse by national shortages of IV fluids in the wake of Hurricane Maria.
Are we headed toward a historically bad flu season? It’s too early to tell. This year, it could just be that flu season, which is u...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - February 2, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Ross, MD, FIDSA Tags: Cold and Flu Health Infectious diseases Source Type: blogs
Evidence-Based Policy Making? - Dumb Things Politicians Say About Health Care Policy
There have been multiple legislative attempts at major health care reform in the US. Typically, such attempts feature considerable public debate, including speechs, congressional committee hearings, sometimes progressing to debates by the House and Senate. (For example, see thisFrontline chronology of the proceedings up to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, aka " Obamacare, " in 2009.) Usually the discussion includes some real experts on health care policy, and some real health care professionals, and at least appears to reference some data about medicine, health care, and health economics. Whether p...
Source: Health Care Renewal - May 23, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: health care reform postmodernism Source Type: blogs
The flu shot saves children ’s lives
Follow me on Twitter @drClaire
Of the 358 children who died from influenza between 2010 and 2014, only 26% had been vaccinated against it, according to a study just released in the journal Pediatrics.
That means 74%, or three out of four of them, had not. And maybe if they had been vaccinated, they’d be alive right now.
Of all the vaccines I give as a pediatrician, the flu shot is the one that families refuse most. Parents don’t think they need it. They don’t think it works. They think it is dangerous. This frustrates me, because none of these reasons for refusing the flu shot are true.
Influenza can be a dangerous d...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - April 4, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Claire McCarthy, MD Tags: Children's Health Cold and Flu Infectious diseases Parenting Prevention Vaccines Source Type: blogs
