Since it is a service for our readers, we decided to make our Medgadget Job Board free for all. So if you are looking for partners, co-workers, or slaves, and you want them to be cool enough to be readers of Medgadget, then post a job! Your opportunity will be listed on our board, as well as on all our pages in the right-hand column. Please, only biomed / clinical / hospital admin / etc etc jobs.
Archives: 4/2007
Olympus Medical Systems is releasing to the Japanese market an infrared imaging endoscope called Olympus Gif Type RQ260Z Evis Lucera. According to Japan Corporate News Network, the device will allow clinicians “to assess how far tumors have invaded and therefore how best to treat a particular patient’s stomach cancer. Infiltration of the cancer can be deduced by the proliferation of blood cells in the gastrointestinal mucous membranes.”
Medgadget has learned that the infrared imaging of submucosal blood vessels and blood flows by the device is accomplished through an intravenously administered special pigment that easily absorbs infrared light. The endoscope irradiates the target site with two types of infrared light (790-820nm/905-970nm), and what the operator sees is the auto fluorescence released by the pigment.
The device has not been approved by the FDA, and currently is not for US market.
Product page… (in Japanese)
The Japan Corporate News Network: Olympus Medical to Release World’s First Auto Flourescent Videoscope …
Please welcome another miniaturized tomography system, being announced today: NeuroLogica Corporation‘s new CT scanner is designed for otolaryngology office-based diagnostics.
From the press release:
“With the CereTom OTOscan physicians have a quicker and more convenient path to patient diagnoses,” said Diane Clifford, Director Global Marketing. “Currently it’s a two-step process. Physicians send patients out of the office for a CT scan, and then patients need to schedule a follow-up visit with the physician, once the results from the radiology lab are complete. Now, with the CereTom OTOscan private practices have the capability to scan, diagnose and begin a treatment plan during the first visit, while continuing to foster relationships with their hospital partners by procedural referrals.”
The CereTom OTOscan is a portable eight slice CT scanner that acquires 1.25MM slices per rotation. It is 29 inches long, about five feet tall and four feet wide and weighs approximately 750 pounds. The system’s battery can be recharged in any standard wall outlet and holds enough power to image four to eight patients. The scanner also includes a mini-PACS system that is ideal for use in the physician’s office.
Product page: CereTom™ OTOscan …
Press release: NeuroLogica Launches CereTom OTOscan CT Scanner for The Otolaryngology Market …
Flashbacks: CereTom Portable CT: The Head, Encased; The CereTom™ Mobile CT Scanner
Neurosky, the makers of a biosensor helmet, want to make your gaming experience more life-like and less entertaining.
Technology from NeuroSky and other startups could make video games more mentally stimulating and realistic. It could even enable players to control video game characters or avatars in virtual worlds with nothing but their thoughts.
Adding biofeedback to “Tiger Woods PGA Tour,” for instance, could mean that only those players who muster Zen-like concentration could nail a put. In the popular action game “Grand Theft Auto,” players who become nervous or frightened would have worse aim than those who remain relaxed and focused.
NeuroSky’s prototype measures a person’s baseline brain-wave activity, including signals that relate to concentration, relaxation and anxiety. The technology ranks performance in each category on a scale of 1 to 100, and the numbers change as a person thinks about relaxing images, focuses intently, or gets kicked, interrupted or otherwise distracted.
It’s also unclear whether consumers, particularly American kids, want mentally taxing games.
“It’s hard to tell whether playing games with biofeedback is more fun — the company executives say that, but I don’t know if I believe them,” said Ben Sawyer, director of the Games for Health Project, a division of the Serious Games Initiative. The think tank focuses in part on how to make computer games more educational, not merely pastimes for kids with dexterous thumbs.
The basis of many brain wave-reading games is electroencephalography, or EEG, the measurement of the brain’s electrical activity through electrodes placed on the scalp. EEG has been a mainstay of psychiatry for decades.
An EEG headset in a research hospital may have 100 or more electrodes that attach to the scalp with a conductive gel. It could cost tens of thousands of dollars.
But the price and size of EEG hardware is shrinking. NeuroSky’s “dry-active” sensors don’t require gel, are the size of a thumbnail, and could be put into a headset that retails for as little as $20, said NeuroSky CEO Stanley Yang.
Yahoo! News…
Product Page…
(hat tip: The Raw Feed)
Flashback: Mind Games, Telekinetic Video Games
Last week we opined about the layperson generated site WhoIsSick.org (here & here), but this week we came across another site for our readers to discuss. Medgle.com bills itself as a “personalized medical search engine” created by physicians, for patients. The potential is definitely there for Medgle to be an excellent source for tailor made medical information, but then again, it suggested my [allergic] nasal congestion was sand fly transmitted leishmania…
Why MEDgle?
MEDgle (2028′s Symptomatix® search) is an online information and educational service. With the thousands of articles and sites available, finding relavent medical information is difficult. MEDgle’s goal is to make medical information easily and intuitively accessible for the benefit and betterment of everybody. Simply: search, learn, and thrive.
What is MEDgle?
MEDgle is a computer generated search. It is not a diagnostic or decision making tool. MEDgle indicates the possibilities that exist for any given combination of symptoms. MEDgle is a MEDical GLobal Electronic search
What is NOT in MEDgle?
MEDgle is a search for general medical conditions. It does not include information for ages 0 to 4.
Where did the data come from?
The symptoms for the search results are part of general medical knowledge learned in medical school and residency. MEDgle’s data and the rough probability estimates were contributed by a number of physicians working with MEDgle. Additionally , publicly available information from National Institutes of Health – NIH was used and referenced.
How are results ranked?
MEDgle is based on 2028′s Information Engine which provides the basis for expert systems. The expert system has been seeded with information regarding age, duration, symptoms, and diagnoses. Based on a given search criteria, probabilities are calculated. The potential results are then ranked according to the aggregate proability scores.
What do the blue bars mean?
The blue bars are displayed to give users a visual cue regarding the common occurences of results for a given set of symptoms. A score between 0-100 is calculated based on probablity estimates. The user can thus get an understanding of the relative differences in “commoness” betwenn symptomatix results.
How is frequent, infrequent, and rare defined?
Whenever possible the prevalence/occurrence has been determined by literature review. In the absence of such data prevalence has been estimated from physicians’ daily practice experience.
What do you think? Does this strike an acceptable balance between simplicity and accuracy? If Google is right 58% of the time, how often should Medgle be correct?
Try it for yourself at MEDgle.com…
(hat tip: The Red Ferret Journal)
[www.SmallWondersImaging.com]
[The Register]
[Kotaku]
[Diet Blog]
[Reuters.com]
[BBC NEWS]
Ms Dacre is fighting radio waves that are interfering with her head. The Daily Mail reports on her anxious efforts to create a Faraday cage around her and ward off a large spectrum of EM waves. Medgadget would rather suggest that Ms Dacre upgrade to stainless steel fiber and get one of these:
Daily Mail…
(Hat tip: Drudge Report)
MIT is constantly churning out amazing technologies, and this new cell-weighing technique is no less awesome. The latest method consists of placing single cells on a silicone cantilever. The cantilever is allowed to vibrate at its resonant frequency, and the change in frequency determines the mass of the cell.
The only drawback is that the cell has to be dead for the old technique, but the new one allows the cells to be measured suspended in a fluid. In addition, multiple cells can be weighed in a stream much like cells are counted today in flow cytometry. The hope is that this technology will be used for AIDS research and better measurements in nanoparticle-containing products. Or you could just see how fat your cells really are.
Read about the technique here…
Three years of intense research and engineering expertise have produced the Wizzybug, an electric wheelchair for disabled children of ages 5 and under. The device is designed to be more appealing to children, and apparently those power-wheel users next door are getting a little envious!
The buggy was designed by engineers at the Bath Institute for Medical Engineering. It weighs 69 lbs., has a programmable joystick, memory foam, can be dismantled to fit in the trunk of car, and is being sold at cost by a UK charity for around £2,000.
Read the BBC article here…
(Hat Tip: Medlaunches)
