Wearable Sweat Sensor to Measure Gout-Causing Compounds
Researchers from Caltech, Peking University in China, Santa Clara University, and University of California, Los Angeles have developed a new wearable sensor that can detect gout-causing compounds in sweat. The device relies on novel laser-engraved chemical sensors to detect gout-causing compounds uric acid and tyrosine at concentrations much lower than previously possible. Moreover, the same device also measures sweat rate, body temperature, and heart and respiration rates. The technology may be an important development for the field of wearable sensors and for the tens of millions of people worldwide who suffer from or ar...
Source: Medgadget - November 27, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Siavash Parkhideh Tags: Medicine Source Type: blogs
Darolutamide approved for nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer
Sometimes after finishing prostate cancer treatment, men get an unwelcome surprise: their prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels creep higher, suggesting tumors too small to be seen lurk somewhere in the body. This leads to several options. Doctors can continue to monitor a man’s condition with imaging scans. Or, given the anxiety associated with rising PSA, they might try to lower the levels with chemically “castrating” drugs that inhibit testosterone, a hormone that makes prostate tumors grow faster.
Following that treatment, called androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), PSA generally declines and may become undetecta...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - November 22, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Charlie Schmidt Tags: Health Living With Prostate Cancer Treatments HPK Source Type: blogs
Case of Popcorn Lung in Canada Due to E-Cigarettes? Not so Fast
It is being widely reported in the media that there was recently a case of " popcorn lung " in Canada that was due to the use of e-cigarettes. These reports are exaggerated and inaccurate representations of a medical journalarticle published in theCanadian Medical Association Journal.The article reports the case of a 17-year-old patient who presented with severe respiratory failure requiring mechanical ventilation. A chest CT scan revealed a " bud-in-tree " pattern which is consistent with a diagnosis of bronchiolitis. Because the study authors had heard that some e-liquids contain a flavoring called diacetyl, which has li...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - November 22, 2019 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs
XACT Hands-free Instrument Placement Robot Cleared in U.S.
XACT Robotics, an Israeli company, just announced winning FDA clearance for its instrument steering and insertion system for percutaneous procedures. Used to perform procedures such as biopsies and ablations, the XACT device provides a great deal of precision when advancing needles and other instruments towards hard to reach targets.
Breathing, for example, greatly affects the perceived location of a potential tumor, as seen on a CT scan. The XACT robot is placed on the patient and it takes live data from the CT scanner and planning software to continuously adjust the needle and move it just as expected.
If the need...
Source: Medgadget - October 31, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Ob/Gyn Radiology Surgery Thoracic Surgery Urology Source Type: blogs
Facial Recognition Software IDs Individuals from MRI Brain Scans
Clinical researchers regularly share data with other scientists. Typically, a great deal of effort is expended to make sure that individuals cannot be identified from the data that are generated from them. When sharing imaging information, such as MRI and CT scans, researchers remove names, patient numbers, and other metadata that can potentially be used to identify an individual. Turns out, this may not be enough, particularly when the imaging data contains scans of people’s faces.
Researchers at Mayo Clinic showed that commercial facial recognition software can, indeed, identify individuals from brain MRI scans....
Source: Medgadget - October 24, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Neurology Radiology Society Source Type: blogs
60-something with 2 days of intermittent epigastric pain. Why does the cardiologist disagree?
Conclusion An invasive strategy based on coronary stenting with adjunctive use of abciximab reduces infarct size in patients with acute STEMI without persistent symptoms presenting 12 to 48 hours after symptom onset.===================================MY Comment by KEN GRAUER, MD (10/20/2019):===================================I find it difficult to believe that the Cardiologist Attending On Call did not allow for the possibility that the OMI in this case was either acute and/or ongoing.MY Question: Was this the opinion of the Attending Cardiologist — or a Resid...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - October 19, 2019 Category: Cardiology Authors: Steve Smith Source Type: blogs
Is there really a blood test to diagnose concussion?
In the past year and a half, various news stories may have led some people to believe that there are blood tests that can diagnose or unmask concussions with a single drop of blood. For individuals who have recently received a bump, hit, or jolt to the head and are wondering if they have sustained a concussion, this may sound like a simple way to find out. Unfortunately, for now it probably isn’t.
What do these blood tests actually do?
Simply put, these tests measure substances, such as proteins and enzymes, that are released into the blood within hours of a brain injury when there is intracranial damage (including bleed...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - October 17, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Eve Valera, PhD Tags: Concussions Memory Neurological conditions Tests and procedures Source Type: blogs
3D Liquid-Cell Electron Microscopy Imaging Now Possible
Electron microscopy revealed a world that exists at scales smaller than the wavelength of light. Advancements in this field have allowed scientists to visualize ever more objects and processes, but actually seeing living cells in 3D and within a liquid environment has been impossible.
Now, a team of researchers from Penn State University, Virginia Tech, and a company called Protochips have developed a system that allows for an electron microscope to be used to volumetrically visualize living cells and biological systems that exist in a liquid.
“With this technology that we developed in collaboration with Protoc...
Source: Medgadget - October 15, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Diagnostics Materials Nanomedicine News Oncology Pathology Radiology microscopy Source Type: blogs
Deep Learning Spots Organs on CT Scans to Prevent Radiation Damage
Radiotherapy is a well established method for attacking tumors within the body. There are a number of techniques that are used to administer radiation to a lesion, but they all come with the risk of injuring nearby tissues and organs. Gamma beams and other directed high energy devices result in the exposure of all the tissues that are on the way to and on the other side of a target, which is a serious problem. Knowing where the important organs are in individual patients can allow clinicians to prepare radiation therapy treatments so that as little collateral damage occurs as possible. CT scans are usually used to map the ...
Source: Medgadget - October 9, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Informatics Oncology Radiation Oncology Radiology Source Type: blogs
Epica SeeFactorCT3 Multi-Modality System Wins FDA Clearance
Epica, a company based in San Clemente, California, won FDA clearance for its SeeFactorCT3 system that combines computed tomography (CT), fluoroscopy, and digitial radiography (DR) into a single device. It is intended for use in diagnostic, interventional, and intraoperative procedures mostly involving the head, neck, and extremities. As such, it is expected to be used by a variety of surgeons, dentists, and imaging specialists.
The SeeFactorCT3 produces sliceless CT images, unlike typical CT systems, which means that there’s no interpolation involved and therefore less chance of introducing artifacts. Isotrop...
Source: Medgadget - October 8, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Dentistry Orthopedic Surgery Radiology Vascular Surgery Source Type: blogs
Is there a test for Alzheimer ’s disease?
After spending 30 minutes hunting for your car in a parking lot, or getting lost on a familiar route, have you ever considered asking your doctor for a blood test or brain scan to find out if you have Alzheimer’s disease?
A number of factors contribute to Alzheimer’s disease. By definition, this form of dementia involves the buildup of a protein in brain called beta-amyloid. Beta-amyloid forms plaques that disrupt communication between brain cells, and ultimately destroys them. For this reason, tests for Alzheimer’s disease focus on beta-amyloid.
Blood tests for Alzheimer’s disease are being developed
Recently, res...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - September 27, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Andrew E. Budson, MD Tags: Alzheimer's Disease Healthy Aging Memory Tests and procedures Source Type: blogs
Chest pain with NonDiagnostic ECG but Diagnostic CT Scan
An elderly woman presented with chest pain that radiated to the back for several hours.Here is here initial ECG:There is only a nonspecific flat T-wave in aVL. It is essentially normal.The first troponin returned at 0.099 ng/mL (elevated, consistent with Non-Occlusion MI)Providers were concerned with aortic dissection, so they order a chest aorta CT.This showed no dissection but did show the following:Notice the area of the lateral wall (lower right) that has no contrast enhancement (It is dark, where areas of enhancement are light-colored). This transmural ischemia, but not necessarily completed infarction...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - September 26, 2019 Category: Cardiology Authors: Steve Smith Source Type: blogs
Breathtaking: The Future Of Respiratory Care And Pulmonology
Smoke-measuring smart shirts, breath sound analyzing
algorithms, and smart inhalers pave the way of pulmonology and respiratory care
into the future. As the number of patients suffering from asthma, COPD, or lung
cancer due to rising air pollution and steady smoker-levels will unfortunately
not decrease any time soon, we looked around what technology can do to help
both patients and caregivers. The results are breathtaking.
Attacks of
breathlessness are too common
The diseases which pulmonologists and respiratory care
specialists attempt to fight are among the most common conditions in the modern
world – and the n...
Source: The Medical Futurist - September 25, 2019 Category: Information Technology Authors: nora Tags: Artificial Intelligence Future of Medicine Health Sensors & Trackers AI asthma cancer cancer treatment care COPD diagnostics inhaler lung lung cancer management medical specialty pulmonology respiratory respiratory care Source Type: blogs
MRI Helps Us Distinguish Benign from Malignant Meningioma
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could be a successful technology for understanding the severity ofmeningioma, according to a studyrecently published inClinical Radiology. Determining if meningioma is high grade or low grade can help physicians decide how the tumor should be managed. Researchers from the American University Beirut Medical Center ventured to find out if MRI could help identify the meningioma grade before it ’s removed from the patient, making surgery easier and safer. The researchers analyzed scans of 71 patients who had undergone surgeries to remove intracranial meningiomas at American University bet...
Source: radRounds - September 22, 2019 Category: Radiology Authors: Julie Morse Source Type: blogs
Early Bird, an Internal Bleeding Detector, Now Available In U.S.
Saranas, a Houston, Texas firm, is releasing its novel Early Bird bleeding monitoring system in the United States, following FDA de novo approval of the device.
Intended for use during minimally invasive vascular procedures, the Early Bird helps to identify dangerous events such as ruptured or dissected vessels. Such incidents can result from using large tools, such as those used during transcatheter aortic valve replacements, and they are often undetected for too long, leading to extensive internal bleeding or blood extravasation.
Currently the only device with this kind of capability, the Early Bird uses a vascul...
Source: Medgadget - September 18, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Cardiac Surgery Cardiology Radiology Vascular Surgery Source Type: blogs
