Robotic-Assisted Surgery – Current Challenges and Future Directions: Interview with Dr. Mona Orady
During the last decade and a half, robotic-assisted surgery has led to smaller scars, less pain, and faster recoveries for patients. Concurrently, surgeons using this technology have benefited from being able to perform surgeries in a more comfortable position, while also experiencing greater visualization and enhanced precision. With all of these benefits, robotic-assisted surgeries are becoming increasingly common worldwide, particularly in the United States, where more than 67 percent of all of Intuitive Surgical‘s da Vinci robots are installed. Moreover, just yesterday we covered the FDA clearance of the Senhance...
Source: Medgadget - October 17, 2017 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Kenan Raddawi Tags: Exclusive Ob/Gyn Surgery Thoracic Surgery Urology Source Type: blogs
Does This Email Message from KVK Tech Violate FDA Regulations?
Today, I received an email message from KVK Tech - a generic drug manufacturer located in my my hometown of Newtown, PA - regarding a gift to Stanford ' s Department of Bariatric and Minimally Invasive Surgery (see below; ignore that the email has the wrong date on it - you can ' t expect a drug company to have good copy editors, can you?). It talks about obesity in the U.S.At the end of the email, in the " About KVK Tech " section, it mentions that it manufactures and distributes Lomaira, which is a drug to treat obesity. Unfortunately, KVK Tech does not mention the Important Safety Information (ISI) whenever a drug compa...
Source: Pharma Marketing Blog - September 28, 2017 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: FDA KVK Tech Obesity drugs regulations Source Type: blogs
The High Cost of Public Reporting
ANISH KOKA MD
In an age where big data is king and doctors are urged to treat populations, the journey of one man still has much to tell us. This is a tale of a man named Joe.
Joseph Carrigan was a bear of a man – though his wife would say he was more teddy than bear. He loved guitar playing, and camp horror movies. Those who knew him well said he had a kind heart, a quick wit and loved cats.
I knew none of these things when I met Joe in the Emergency Department on a Sunday afternoon. I had been called because of an abnormal electrocardiogram – the ER team was worried he could be having a heart attack. ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - September 18, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: anish_koka Tags: Uncategorized Cardiac surgery High-risk Quality Reporting Source Type: blogs
The Cost of Public Reporting
ANISH KOKA MD
In an age where big data is king and doctors are urged to treat populations, the journey of one man still has much to tell us. This is a tale of a man named Joe.
Joseph Carrigan was a bear of a man – though his wife would say he was more teddy than bear. He loved guitar playing, and camp horror movies. Those who knew him well said he had a kind heart, a quick wit and loved cats.
I knew none of these things when I met Joe in the Emergency Department on a Sunday afternoon. I had been called because of an abnormal electrocardiogram – the ER team was worried he could be having a heart attack. ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - September 18, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: anish_koka Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Minimally Invasive Surgery Congress 2017: A Quick Summary
Discussion also focused on using virtual reality and simulators to train increasing numbers of surgical trainees faster, better, and cheaper—with the issue brought sharply into focus in the context of the growing global shortage in the number of surgeons needed to perform even basic procedures.
Both cautious and enthusiastic outlooks of increased technology use in surgery were debated by participants—some advocated for a conservative balancing of costs to benefits in the short-term, others for embracing the digital revolution enthusiastically.
“Virtual surgeon” and popular futurist Shafi Ahmed perhaps put it best: ...
Source: Medgadget - March 13, 2017 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Tom Peach Tags: Exclusive Source Type: blogs
Joint Replacement Q & A with Dr. Theodore Manson
Theodore Manson, MD is an Orthopaedic Surgeon at the University of Maryland Medical Center and an Associate Professor of Orthopaedics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
Dr. Manson specializes in hip and knee replacements and orthopaedic trauma. Below he answers the most common questions about joint replacement.
Q. What advances have there been in joint replacements including new technologies, changes in patient-management and rehabilitation?
A. One significant advancement in the last 10 years has been around pain management and early recovery protocols. The goal is to minimize the amount of narcotics...
Source: Life in a Medical Center - March 2, 2017 Category: Universities & Medical Training Authors: Hannah Braun Tags: Doctors Health Tips Orthopaedics Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
FlexDex Minimally Invasive Surgical System Used in Real Operations (video)
FlexDex, a new minimally invasive surgical tool system that we’ve grown quite fond of, has now been used for the first time in a number of operations at Michigan Medicine. We tried the FlexDex ourselves during a visit to the company’s offices last year and, hoping not to exaggerate, we felt that the system really is set to revolutionize minimally invasive surgery. It is even set to compete with expensive robotic surgical systems at a cost orders of magnitude lower.
Unlike existing commonly used minimally invasive tools, the FlexDex is very intuitive and ergonomic to use. The working tip flexes in the same dire...
Source: Medgadget - February 23, 2017 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Editors Tags: Ob/Gyn Orthopedic Surgery Thoracic Surgery Urology Vascular Surgery Source Type: blogs
The Technological Future of Surgery
The future of surgery offers an amazing cooperation between humans and technology, which could elevate the level of precision and efficiency of surgeries so high we have never seen before.
Will we have Matrix-like small surgical robots? Will they pull in and out organs from patients’ bodies?
The scene is not impossible. It looks like we have come a long way from ancient Egypt, where doctors performed invasive surgeries as far back as 3,500 years ago. Only two years ago, Nasa teamed up with American medical company Virtual Incision to develop a robot that can be placed inside a patient’s body and then controlled rem...
Source: The Medical Futurist - January 17, 2017 Category: Information Technology Authors: nora Tags: Future of Medicine Medical Augmented Reality Medical Robotics Virtual Reality in Medicine 3d printing AI artificial intelligence diagnostics gc4 Surgery surgical robot technology Source Type: blogs
Rapid Biomedical Innovation Calls For Similar Innovation In Pricing And Value Measurement
Advances in foundational science, technology, and clinical knowledge are driving a revolution in patient care. Minimally invasive surgery has reduced rates of post-surgical complications, reduced hospitalization, and dramatically accelerated recovery; direct-acting antivirals have brought a cure for hepatitis C; and novel immunotherapies have brought the promise of increased survival to late-stage cancer patients. The list goes on.
At the same time, spending on these innovative drugs and devices has increased dramatically. Between 1980 and 2010, overall personal health care expenditures in the US grew nearly four-fold, dri...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 15, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Dana Goldman, Samuel Nussbaum and Mark Linthicum Tags: Drugs and Medical Innovation Featured Comparative Effectiveness health technology assessment National Health Service National Institute for Health and Care Excellence PCORI Source Type: blogs
Octobot: A Completely Soft and Flexible Robot May One Day Invade Our Bodies
Harvard University researchers built what they describe as the world’s first completely soft robot. The device looks like an octopus and is appropriately named Octobot. Though it resembles a toy, the core technology within it may one day be used for medical applications such as minimally invasive surgery and imaging of the GI tract.
To overcome the limitations of commonly used technologies, such as rigid batteries and other electronics, the team harnessed more exotic methods to build the Octobot. Instead of a battery, the robot uses a chemical reaction fueled by hydrogen peroxide to power its movement, which happen...
Source: Medgadget - August 25, 2016 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Editors Tags: GI Ob/Gyn Surgery Urology Source Type: blogs
Vibrating Device Gives Sense of Touch to Minimally Invasive Surgical Tools
Minimally invasive surgery has always suffered from physicians’ inability to feel tissues at the end of an instrument. Advanced haptic technologies are promising to bridge the sensory gap, but researchers at Hiroshima University in Japan have come up with a very cheap and easy solution to transfer the sense of touch from the tip to the handle in just about any already existing minimally invasive instrument.
The technique works thanks to a piezoelectric component attached to the instrument’s handle that gently vibrates at a constant frequency. This vibration is not felt by the person using the tool, but once the...
Source: Medgadget - August 11, 2016 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Editors Tags: Ob/Gyn Surgery Thoracic Surgery Urology Vascular Surgery Source Type: blogs
Scientific integrity – Editors on the front line
he meeting began with an impressive talk from Luc Soler (IRCAD, France) who explained how advances in technology were bringing about a revolution in minimally invasive surgery using augmented reality which is happening now!
After an inspiring opening it was down to business the next day with the core theme of the conference being ‘Scientific Integrity – Editors on the front line’.
Lex Bouter (VU University Amsterdam) gave a plenary lecture on selective reporting and the reproducibility crisis. He described the spectrum of issues that can occur from honest error, sloppy research, poor reproducibility, right through to...
Source: BioMed Central Blog - June 17, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Elizabeth Moylan & Maria Kowalczuk Tags: Publishing peer review Source Type: blogs
There They Go Again - the New England Medical Journal Publishes another Rant, this Time about Power Morcellation
In 2015, we noted (here and here) that the New England Journal of Medicine seemed to have been reduced to publishing rants about "pharmascolds" who are paranoid about conflicts of interest. Now there they go again.... BackgroundThe sad story about the risks of power morcellation for the treatment of fibroids has received considerable media attention. The state of play through July, 2014 was described in a series of articles in the Cancer Letter of July 4, 2014. (Look here.) Uterine fibroids are a common affliction of women. Their preferred surgical management had changed from open surgery to minimally invasive ...
Source: Health Care Renewal - March 20, 2016 Category: Health Management Tags: cancer FDA logical fallacies New England Journal of Medicine Partners Healthcare Source Type: blogs
Health Affairs’ February Issue: Biomedical Innovation
The February issue of Health Affairs includes a number of studies examining issues pertaining to biomedical innovation. Some of the subjects covered: how declining economic returns for new drugs may affect future investments, the changing landscape of Medicare coverage determinations for medical interventions, the slowly emerging US biosimilar market, and more.
With declining economic returns, can manufacturers afford to continue investing?
Ernst Berndt of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Alfred P. Sloan School of Management and coauthors compared present values of average lifetime pharmaceutical revenues to prese...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - February 2, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Chris Fleming Tags: All Categories Biotech Innovation Medicare Pharma Policy Research Science and Health Technology HA_BiomedInnovation Source Type: blogs
Minimally Invasive Surgery: Educating Surgeons Though Proctorships
The benefits of minimally invasive surgery (MIS), surgery done through one or more tiny incisions rather than one large opening, are well-documented at this point for a range of procedures. A recent study published in BMJ found that MIS is associated with fewer surgical site infections, less blood loss and postoperative pain, and shorter hospital stays than standard open surgery. Another study, published last year in the Journal of American Medicine Association (JAMA) found that MIS may result in significantly lower health plan spending than standard surgery.
Despite these benefits, a report by Johns Hopki...
Source: Policy and Medicine - October 16, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
