Tuesday, September 7, 2010

CoreValve Aortic Valve Replacement System Now With AccuTrak Stability Layer

Filed under: Cardiac Surgery , Cardiology , Radiology

Medtronic has received European CE Mark of approval to market the transcatheter CoreValve system now with the AccuTrak Stability Layer for replacing aortic valves. The AccuTrak system purportedly provides greater control and usability for surgeons deploying the valves.

AccuTrak’s proprietary technology allows physicians to achieve enhanced control and accuracy in the deployment of the CoreValve device.¹ This next generation technology builds upon the CoreValve system that first received CE (Conformité Européenne) Mark in March 2007. CoreValve and AccuTrak are not yet available in the United States, Canada or Japan for investigational or commercial sale or use.
“The AccuTrak stability layer is a valuable advancement for CoreValve, which already offers a unique self-expanding design to control the positioning and release of the valve,” said Prof. Rüdiger Lange, M.D., Ph.D., director of cardiovascular surgery at The German Heart Centre in Munich, Germany, whose center was among the first to use the new delivery system with the AccuTrak Stability Layer in a CoreValve implantation. “This system makes it easier to precisely position the CoreValve device, which can be important to achieving positive procedure outcomes. The increased accuracy and control with the new delivery system may also make it even easier to train physicians to perform TAVI procedures.”

Press release: Medtronic Gains CE Mark for Enhanced CoreValve® Delivery Catheter System with AccuTrak Stability Layer...

Product page: CoreValve...

Flashbacks: Flashbacks: Edwards Sapien Transcatheter Aortic Valve Makes Human Debut; Minimally Invasive Aortic Valve Replacement With the Lotus System; Edwards Lifesciences Delays Cribier-Edwards Percutaneous Aortic Valve Trials; Edwards Sapien Transcatheter Aortic Valve Makes Human Debut; Minimally Invasive Aortic Valve Replacement With the Lotus System; Edwards Lifesciences Delays Cribier-Edwards Percutaneous Aortic Valve Trials

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More Restrictive Abortion Policies Translate into Higher Google Search Rates for Information

Filed under: Net News , Public Health

Using Google Trends for epidemiology/public health research is a cheap and simple way to determine what a regional populace is interested in. Researchers at Children's Hospital Boston wanted to know if populations that had less access to abortion wanted to know more or less about it, as judged by numbers of Google searches for "abortion." They found:

Results Our initial integrative analysis found that, both in the US and internationally, the volume of Internet searches for abortion is inversely proportional to local abortion rates and directly proportional to local restrictions on abortion.
Conclusion
These findings are consistent with published evidence that local restrictions on abortion lead individuals to seek abortion services outside of their area. Further validation of these methods has the potential to produce a timely, complementary data source for studying the effects of health policies.

Those wanting to practice their amateur epidemiology skills can do their own trend analysis at Google Insights...

Link at Children's Hospital Boston: Google search trends correlate with abortion rates, policies...

Full paper in BMC Public Health: Measuring the impact of health policies using Internet search patterns: the case of abortion

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Detecting Words From Brain Signals

Filed under: Neurology

Researchers from the University of Utah have shown that they can detect articulated words from signals received by electrodes on the brain's surface. This might one day enable patients with locked-in syndrome to communicate with their surroundings. The researchers used grids of microelectrodes placed on the cortical surface over speech centers during craniotomy in a patient with severe epileptic seizures. The microelectrodes consisted of 16 nonpenetrating microwires at millimetre intervals in a 4x4 grid pattern. They recorded local field potentials from the surface of face motor cortex and Wernicke's area. Brain signals corresponding to ten different words were analyzed: yes, no, hot, cold, hungry, thirsty, hello, goodbye, more and less. Accurately distinguishing between two different words, for example yes and no, was possible up to ninety percent of the time, while accuracy dropped to forty-eight percent when distinguishing between all ten words. These results were achieved without any patient training. There is still plenty of opportunity to improve on these results while reducing invasiveness and the researchers go as far as to speculate about wireless systems able to record high-resolution cortical surface potentials functioning as brain-computer interfaces. The results are published in the September issue of the Journal of Neural Engineering.

Press release: The Brain Speaks...

Article abstract: Decoding spoken words using local field potentials recorded from the cortical surface...

Flashback: microECoG Electrodes Create New Possibilities to Study, Intervene in Brain Function

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Bruker Icon 1 Tesla Desktop MRI Scanner

Filed under: etc.

Bruker BioSpin has just announced their new Icon 1 Tesla desktop MRI scanner for preclinical (animal) and molecular imaging. Although this system is not suitable for human imaging, with the current rate of technical advancements similar systems might become available for humans in the foreseeable future as well. It has a permanent magnet for which no cryogens are needed. There is no magnetic field outside of the scanner and no magnetic or radiofrequency shielding is required for the room where it is placed. Additionally, it has a compact footprint and low running costs.

Press release: Bruker Introduces Icon, a High-Performance Desktop MRI System...

Product page: Icon

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Friday, September 3, 2010

Economist Article on Tempus by RDT

Filed under: in the news...

Way back (in internet time) in 2006 we posted about Virgin Airways' plans to use the Tempus from RDT in their aircraft for long haul flights. The Tempus is a minimal training vital signs monitor for use in way out of hospital settings that can transmit all the recorded data to medical control on the ground or other locations. Now, in 2010, the plan has been implemented and several other carriers use the device as well. Recently The Economist wrote it up and included a gripping tale of its use:

HALF way through a flight from Mumbai to London, a male passenger complained of a swollen right hand and an inability to bend his fingers. The flight attendants were uncertain about what to do and hooked the passenger up to a small device which took and transmitted vital signs, including his pulse, blood pressure and a picture of his hand, to a ground-based medical team.
As the passenger’s condition worsened, the device was also used to transmit an electrocardiographic (ECG) trace. The resulting information was used to rule out heart problems, and the passenger was stabilised and monitored with the assistance of a doctor on the flight. The decision was made to continue the journey rather than divert to the nearest airport.

The article goes on to detail RDT's future plans for the Tempus, including making it more rugged for military applications and including ultrasound and a laryngoscope.

The Economist: An online medic...

Product page: Tempus IC...

Previously: Virgin Atlantic To Introduce On-Board Telemedicine

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London Medical Heritage Walking Tour

Filed under: Net News , the good old days...

The website City Stories publishes walks which tell you important stories about the city you are in. If you're in London or planning a visit, you'll be happy to know that their first walk is Medical London, and has been produced in collaboration with the Wellcome Collection. It is a tour of Bloomsbury and the surrounding area, covering some important parts of London's medical heritage. It accompanies the Medical London: City of Diseases, City of Cures book. The walk covers three miles and takes about two hours to complete. An iPhone app has been developed which gives you the full audiovisual experience, with a map showing all steps, video, audio, pictures and written information. The text was written by the historian Richard Barnett and the walk is narrated by Dilly Barlow. The app is available for free from the app store. Alternatively the walk is also available for download as MP3, as a PDF booklet or for view on the website.

iTunes link: City Stories Medical London Bloomsbury...

Homepage: City Stories Walk: Medical London walk...

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UCSF's Artificial Kidney Protoype Unveiled

Filed under: in the news...

End stage renal disease is a devastating condition in which dialysis may help prolong life, but the only real cure is a kidney transplant. The pioneering of the kidney transplant has saved countless numbers of lives, however end-stage renal disease continues to grow in prevalence and the supply of kidneys remains limited. Patients wait for years to obtain kidneys, and even once a kidney is finally transplanted patients face a lifetime of immunosuppressive drugs and fears about the donor kidney being rejected.

UCSF has been working on an ambitious project to create an artificial kidney using a combination of tissue engineering and MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) technology. The scientists hope that one day this device can actually be used in lieu of a kidney transplant and not just as a stop-gap measure. The device has been shown to be effective in a larger external version, and as an implantable animal model.

Here is more from the press release:

The device, which would include thousands of microscopic filters as well as a bioreactor to mimic the metabolic and water-balancing roles of a real kidney, is being developed in a collaborative effort by engineers, biologists and physicians nationwide, led by Shuvo Roy in the UCSF Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences.
The treatment has been proven to work for the sickest patients using a room-sized external model developed by a team member in Michigan. Roy's goal is to apply silicon fabrication technology, along with specially engineered compartments for live kidney cells, to shrink that large-scale technology into a device the size of a coffee cup. The device would then be implanted in the body without the need for immune suppressant medications, allowing the patient to live a more normal life.

...

The team has established the feasibility of an implantable model in animal models and plans to be ready for clinical trials in five to seven years.

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The two-stage system uses a hemofilter to remove toxins from the blood, while applying recent advances in tissue engineering to grow renal tubule cells to provide other biological functions of a healthy kidney. The process relies on the body's blood pressure to perform filtration without needing pumps or an electrical power supply.

Press release: UCSF unveils model for implantable artificial kidney to replace dialysis

Flashbacks: Wearable Artificial Kidney (WAK); New Device Points Way to Artificial Kidney Implants; An Update On The Progress of Wearable Artificial Kidney; Kidney Cell Engineering Hits Bottleneck;

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Stand-up Wheelchair Concept

Filed under: Rehab

The folks at Yanko Designs seem to really like wheelchair designs, and have posted another one, this one by designer Tim Leeding. His concept is of a wheelchair that can be manually transitioned to a standing position to allow more normal social interactions and has a gear box for more efficient wheeling. Read more at the Yanko post, including a discussion by the designer about how his design distinguishes itself from similar stand-up wheelchairs.

Yanko: The Leeding E.D.G.E Wheelchair

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Thursday, September 2, 2010

Braille Buddy Helps Visually Impaired Learn to Read and Write

Filed under: Rehab

Yanko Design blog is profiling the Braille Buddy project that aims to develop a simple to use tool to help people who've lost eyesight to learn Braille. Braille Buddy has little retractable nipples that code for different letters, a keyboard, and a voice synthesizer that guides patients through different lessons. The voice will read out letters that a patient has to type back in Braille, and the tactile screen will display letters to read and identify.

Yanko Design: My Best Buddy Braille...

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MAZOR's SpineAssist / C-Insight Combined Spinal Surgical System Gets Green Light in US

Filed under: Neurological Surgery , Orthopedic Surgery

Israel's business newspaper Globes is reporting that MAZOR Surgical Technologies has received approval from the FDA for the company's combined SpineAssist navigation and C-Insight imaging system. As we have reported before, Mazor's SpineAssist device is a miniature robotic guidance / perioperative planning system designed for treatments of spinal compression fractures and other vertebral surgical issues.

From the product pages:

SpineAssist

The system consists of a miniature device that mounts above the patient’s spine, and a workstation running advanced surgical planning software.

SpineAssist’s software allows surgeons to perform 3D, CT- based preoperative planning on a personal computer at their own convenience prior to surgery.

Using a virtual catalogue of surgical implants, surgeons can view and position implants within each vertebra or disc on three planes: AP, lateral and axial. A special feature in the software is used to review the planning slice by slice in sequence.

The software supports a range of measurements including Cobb angle, lordosis and kyphosis. The surgeon can view a simulation of the correction they are planning, which is especially useful in deformity and scoliosis cases. The software also calculates rod length and curvature.

The SpineAssist workstation connects to a fluoroscopic C-Arm and performs automatic CT-to-fluoroscopy image registration based upon 2 fluoroscopic images. The workstation is used to control the precise motion of the miniature device to the preplanned position.

C-InSight
C-InSight is an add-on to existing C-Arms, converting 2D scans to 3D images intraoperatively.

In line with FDA guidelines for radiation reduction, C-InSight provides 3D images at radiation exposure levels as low as 5%-10% of other intraoperative 3D scans, making is safer for both the OR team and patients. C-InSight can often eliminate the need for a post-operative CT scan.

C-InSight quickly connects to any C-Arm with a video output (via BNC cable) and converts 2D scans to 3D images in 2 minutes.

A short in-service will get the OR technicians / staff ready to operate the C-InSight. The easy step-by-step instructions assure consistent performance.