Acoustic neuroma: A slow-growing tumor that requires specialized care
An acoustic neuroma, also known as a vestibular schwannoma, is a tumor of the hearing and balance nerve complex in the brain. They are rare, and account for less than 10% of all brain tumors. The tumor involves an area of the brain and ear called the lateral skull base; an acoustic neuroma can range in size, and it can cause a variety of troublesome symptoms related to hearing and balance.
It is important to note that although the diagnosis of a brain tumor can cause significant anxiety, acoustic neuromas are noncancerous and grow very slowly. This means that immediate treatment is rarely necessary.
What are the most commo...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - March 19, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: James Naples, MD Tags: Brain and cognitive health Ear, nose, and throat Hearing Loss Radiation Source Type: blogs
Mayo Clinic's Web Site Contains a " Find Diseases and Conditions " Feature
Searching for reliable web sites that discuss the diagnosis of diseases can be a hit-or-miss proposition. The process is sometimes jokingly referred to as"consulting Dr. Google" (see:The precautions you should take before consulting ‘Dr. Google’). Regarding the use of lab tests for diagnosis, one of the best resources that I know is the ARUP LaboratoriesTest Directory. One word of caution here is that it's primarily designed to guide physicians in test ordering.The trend of providing information on the web about diseases for consumers continues. One example is the Mayo Clinic web site (see:Find Dise...
Source: Lab Soft News - February 28, 2020 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Clinical Lab Testing Diagnostics Electronic Health Record (EHR) Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Innovations Medical Consumerism Public Health Source Type: blogs
New study compares long-term side effects from different prostate cancer treatments
Prostate cancer therapies are improving over time. But how do the long-term side effects from the various options available today compare? Results from a newly published study are providing some valuable insights.
Investigators at Vanderbilt University and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center spent five years tracking the sexual, bowel, urinary, and hormonal status of nearly 2,000 men after they had been treated for prostate cancer, or monitored with active surveillance (which entails checking the tumor periodically and treating it only if it begins to grow). Cancers in all the men were still confined to the p...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - February 27, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Charlie Schmidt Tags: Health Prostate Knowledge Treatments HPK Source Type: blogs
GammaTiles Help Prevent Recurrence of Malignant Brain Tumors After Surgery
GT Medical Technologies, a company based in Tempe, Arizona, won FDA clearance for its GammaTiles to be used to prevent malignant brain tumors in newly diagnosed patients. The devices, about the size of a postage stamp, contain Cesium-131, a radioactive isotope with a half life of about ten days.
The collagen material within which the radioactive seeds are placed is resorbable by the body and doesn’t require a separate extraction procedure. This surgically targeted radiation therapy procedure was recently made available in a few hospitals for patients with recurrent brain tumors, but the new indication makes the de...
Source: Medgadget - January 28, 2020 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Materials Medicine Neurosurgery Oncology Radiation Oncology Radiology Source Type: blogs
New Technology to Destroy Cancer Cells, Oncotripsy, May Offer Promise
Many of the readers of this blog will be familiar withlithotripsy which involves the use of shock waves to disintegrate stones in the kidneys, bladder, and ureter (see:Lithotripsy). Scientists are now experimenting with the use of ultrasound to selectively kill cancer cells (see:Ultrasound selectively damages cancer cells when tuned to correct frequencies). They have called this type of treatment oncotripsy. Below is an excerpt from the article:A solid mechanics lab at Caltech first developed the theory of oncotripsy, based on the idea that cells are vulnerable to ultrasound at specific frequencies —like how ...
Source: Lab Soft News - January 28, 2020 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Delivery Healthcare Innovations Medical Research Source Type: blogs
Top Artificial Intelligence Companies in Healthcare to Keep an Eye On
The field of medical AI is buzzing. More and more companies set the purpose to disrupt healthcare with the help of artificial intelligence. Given how fast these companies come and go, it can prove to be hard to stay up-to-date with the most promising ones. Here, I collected the biggest names currently on the market ranging from start-ups to tech giants to keep an eye on in the future.
To further help you keep up with what A.I. brings to medicine, The Medical Futurist team made an easy-to-digest e-book about just that. I highly encourage you to read it and would love to hear about your thoughts!
Artificial Intelligence has ...
Source: The Medical Futurist - January 21, 2020 Category: Information Technology Authors: berci.mesko Tags: Artificial Intelligence Healthcare Design AI digital health genetics Innovation Personalized medicine pharma GC1 big data drug development healthcare companies medical imaging Source Type: blogs
Scientists are unraveling the mysteries of pain
More than three decades ago, when Tom Norris was fighting cancer, he underwent radiation therapy on his groin and his left hip. His cancer disappeared and hasn't come back. But Norris was left with a piercing ache that burned from his hip up his spine to his neck.Since then, Norris, now 70, has never had a single day free from pain. It cut short his career as an aircraft maintenance officer in the U.S. Air Force. It's been his constant companion, like the cane he uses to walk. On bad days, the pain is so excruciating, he's bedridden. Even on the best days, it severely limits his ability to move about, preventin...
Source: Psychology of Pain - January 6, 2020 Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, December 16th 2019
This study shows that CA are released from periventricular and subpial regions to the cerebrospinal fluid and are present in the cervical lymph nodes, into which cerebrospinal fluid drains through the meningeal lymphatic system. We also show that CA can be phagocytosed by macrophages. We conclude that CA can act as containers that remove waste products from the brain and may be involved in a mechanism that cleans the brain. Moreover, we postulate that CA may contribute in some autoimmune brain diseases, exporting brain substances that interact with the immune system, and hypothesize that CA may contain brain markers that m...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 15, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
FDA Clears Two New Radiotherapy Planning CTs from Siemens
Procedure planning is an important part of radiation therapy in order to achieve optimal tumor reduction without damaging too much healthy tissue. Two newly FDA-cleared radiation therapy planning CT scanners from Siemens Healthineers are coming to America. The SOMATOM go.Sim and SOMATOM go.Open Pro are part of the company’s SOMATOM.go platform, designed to achieve the best possible clinical results and to help quicken planning procedures.
Somatom go.Sim is a 64-slice scanner, while the SOMATOM go.Open Pro produces images faster and/or sharper, since it generates 128 imaging slices per gantry rotation. Both of the ...
Source: Medgadget - December 13, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Radiation Oncology Radiology Source Type: blogs
Cancer Survivors have Double the Risk of Suffering a Later Stroke
We present a contemporary analysis of risk of fatal stroke among more than 7.5 million cancer patients and report that stroke risk varies as a function of disease site, age, gender, marital status, and time after diagnosis. The risk of stroke among cancer patients is two times that of the general population and rises with longer follow-up time. The relative risk of fatal stroke, versus the general population, is highest in those with cancers of the brain and gastrointestinal tract. The plurality of strokes occurs in patients older than 40 years of age with cancers of the prostate, breast, and colorectum. Patients of any ag...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 9, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Revolutionising radiotherapy: making a cornerstone cancer treatment more personal and powerful
Related items fromOnMedica Cancer survival rates not improved much in a decade Fears over radiation therapy are usually unfounded Prime minister promises £200m to upgrade cancer diagnosis and screening Cancer patients using complementary meds die sooner Mixing complementary therapy with standard cancer treatment (Source: OnMedica Blogs)
Source: OnMedica Blogs - December 2, 2019 Category: General Medicine Source Type: blogs
Most men can hold off on radiation after prostate cancer surgery
Decisions about follow-up care after prostate cancer surgery sometimes involve a basic choice. If the cancer had features that predict it could return, doctors will likely recommend radiation therapy. But when should a man get that treatment? Should he get the radiation right away, even if there’s no evidence of cancer in the body (this is called adjuvant radiation)? Or should he opt for “salvage” radiation, which is given only if his blood levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) begin to climb? Since prostate cancer cells release PSA, the levels should be nondetectable after surgery. If they increase, that means t...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - December 2, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Charlie Schmidt Tags: Health Living With Prostate Cancer Treatments HPK 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
Siemens Healthineers Unveils Two New Radiotherapy Planning CT Scanners
Siemens Healthineers unveiled two new CT scanners specifically designed for radiation therapy planning. The SOMATOM go.Sim and SOMATOM go.Open Pro are 64-slice and 128-slice devices, respectively, and feature an 85 cm opening suitable for larger patients.
To make patient prep easier and faster, the scanners come with an optional DirectLasers system mounted on top of the gantry that projects laser light beams onto the patients. These help to align each patient accurately and are controlled wirelessly using a tablet computer, allowing the radiation therapist more freedom of movement and ease of operation.
Clinician...
Source: Medgadget - September 16, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Oncology Radiation Oncology Radiology Source Type: blogs
