Archives: 11/2007

Radiology

Breathe Easy MRI Software

by Gene Ostrovsky on Nov 7, 2007 • 11:12 am

4364liv Breathe Easy MRI Software
Isis Innovation, a spinoff of the University of Oxford, has developed new software for existing MRI machines to reduce breathing artifacts in medical images of moving organs, such as liver that sits just below the diaphragm.
From the project page:

Radiographers and Radiologists have raised breathing artefacts as a major issue in accurate diagnosis and estimation of tumour volumes. With current methods, in 19% of cases at least 5% of the liver is missed. Indeed, for lesions between 6 and 30mm in diameter, 3% are missed completely with a further 21% being incorrectly staged, leading to false diagnosis of disease progression or regression.
Working closely with clinical staff, Oxford scientists have used their expertise to find a robust solution. On the left, is an image that is reconstructed from a series of slices. The liver boundary is not smooth and the tumour seems to consist of multiple parts. After application of the Oxford technology, the liver outline is much smoother and the tumour well represented by a spherical shape. The technology significantly improves patient comfort by reducing scan duration and avoiding recalls. The improved quality and accuracy of the dataset provides meaningful estimation of tumour volumes for more precise chemotherapy dose calculation. It is estimated that 25% of the annual 2 million abdominal MRI scans worldwide would benefit from this innovation. The invention reached the Finals of the 2007 Medical Futures Innovation Awards and was also the subject of a recent paper in the European Journal of Radiology.

Project page: Isis Project No 2835 …
More from The Engineer: Breathe easy …

Diagnostics

Wheezogram™: Audio Analysis for Monitoring of Asthma

by Gene Ostrovsky on Nov 7, 2007 • 11:07 am

Wheezogram™: Audio Analysis for Monitoring of AsthmaGlobes Online is reporting that KarmelSonix Ltd., an Australian owned company, has received FDA approval for its latest diagnostic system which listens to the wheezing sounds asthmatics make while breathing, analyzes their signatures, and provides feedback whether particular sounds indicate a more acute condition. Audio sensors are worn around the neck and chest, and are connected to the proprietary WIM-PC platform, which does the audio analysis.
From the company site:
11%281%29 Wheezogram™: Audio Analysis for Monitoring of Asthma

It is KS’ [KarmelSonix] aim to provide novel tools for Acoustic Asthma Management to the clinical market. It is doing so by providing a simple, yet highly accurate and relevant measure of asthma – the Wheeze Rate (Wz%). When coupled with measuring the Cough Count, the Wz% is an objective and quantitative indicator of the extent of the airway narrowing at any given moment. It is calculated as the duty cycle of wheeze activity as % of the elapsed time and as such should be controlled at nearly zero by proper treatment during day and night. Obtaining the Wz% only requires that the patient will breathe at the rate and depth of convenience. No imposition is made on the patient and no cooperation is needed. KS’is set forth to provide a full range of products, all based on its core technology, but implemented in the configuration that is most appropriate for its use – from the patient’s home all the way to the Intensive Care Unit.

More from Globes Online…
KarmelSonix technology page…

Nanomedicine

Scientists Pave Way for Detection and Analysis of Carbon Nanotubes Inside Organisms

by Gene Ostrovsky on Nov 7, 2007 • 10:51 am

53434rer Scientists Pave Way for Detection and Analysis of Carbon Nanotubes Inside Organisms
Nanowerk‘s Michael Berger has filed a report about a breakthrough technology developed by Dr. R. Bruce Weisman and colleagues at Rice University to detect the presence of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) inside living cells via NIR fluorescence. Such research might help investigators to further delineate the role SWCNTs play on intracellular biochemistry:

Nanotechnology’s poster child, the carbon nanotube (CNT), has been explored for use in many technical applications. Increasingly, researchers are also looking at the unique biological properties of CNTs for potential biomedical uses. For instance, the interaction between DNA and CNTs have been explored and DNA-functionalized nanotubes hold significant promise as nucleic acid sensors. Nanotubes have also been considered for use as scaffolds for cells in tissue engineering. No matter what their intended function, any material used in medicine must exhibit – among other compatibility factors – biocompatibility, non-toxicity and non-carcinogenicity. And here the jury is still out as far as CNTs are concerned. One limiting factor of toxicological studies so far has been the use of animal tissue rather than living specimen. Researchers have now succeeded in detecting single-walled CNTs (SWCNTs) inside living animals – with surprisingly benign results – paving the way for future research on the effects and fate of nanotubes inside living organisms.
“We believe that our work is the first observation of carbon nanotubes in a living animal and the first detection of individual nanotubes in biological tissues” Dr. R. Bruce Weisman explains to Nanowerk. “Although much more work must be done to investigate the effects of SWCNT exposure on higher animals (mammals), these results show an absence of negative effects in one system and suggest that it is worthwhile to continue studying SWCNTs for biomedical applications, including diagnostic imaging based on their unique near-IR fluorescence signatures.”
Weisman, a professor in the Department of Chemistry at Rice University in Houston, Texas, and his group investigate the spectroscopy and photophysics of fullerenes and carbon nanotubes. Following the discovery in Weisman’s lab of near-infrared nanotube fluorescence, the group has measured and unraveled the absorption and emission spectra of more than 30 semiconducting nanotube species. In his most recent work, Weisman, together with co-author Kathleen Beckingham, professor of biochemistry and cell biology, attempted the first-ever detection of nanotubes inside a living animal. Their findings have been published in a recent paper in Nano Letters (“Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes in the Intact Organism: Near-IR Imaging and Biocompatibility Studies in Drosophila”).

Read: Imaging carbon nanotubes inside a living organism …

Uncategorized

Ins and Outs

by Gene Ostrovsky on Nov 7, 2007 • 9:59 am

43634ge Ins and Outs

  • FDA Works on Draft ID System for Medical Devices, Supplies … [RFID Journal]
  • Would-Be First Ladies Talk Health … [WSJ]
  • Health Reform Swiss-Style, Harvard Edition … [WSJ]
  • Boston Scientific and GE Healthcare Announce their First Patient Data Link to Electronic Medical Record … [Boston Scientific]
  • Boston Scientific Announces Sale of Cardiac Surgery and Vascular Surgery Businesses … [Boston Scientific]
  • GE Healthcare: New Features Bring Additional Utility to the Vivid e and Vivid 7 Dimension … [GE Healthcare]
  • New Data Illustrates Variances in the Use of Evidence-Based Heart Failure Treatments … [Medtronic]
  • St. Jude Medical Announces Results from RethinQ Clinical Trial … [St. Jude Medical]
  • HHS Unveils Plan to Strengthen, Update Food Safety Efforts … [FDA]
  • Functional protein building blocks could be used to fabricate tunable, dynamic materials … [Nanowerk]
  • SunTech Medical Introduces New Blood Pressure Product … [SunTech Medical]
  • HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE OR IRREGULAR HEARTBEAT LINKED TO ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE PROGRESSION … [Johns Hopkins Medicine]
  • Brain Stimulation Helps Tourette’s Patients … [WSJ]
  • The Neurological Roots of Aggression … [MIT Tech Review]
  • photo of goldsteinCocaine Abuse Blunts Sensitivity to Monetary Reward … [Brookhaven National Laboratory]
  • D-Cycloserine Reduces Cocaine-Seeking Behavior in “Addicted” Mice … [Brookhaven National Laboratory]
  • Assumptions of Independence: Researchers Show Evidence of “Memory” in Cells and Molecules … [Georgia Institute of Technology]
  • FAA won’t allow cardiac-arrest machine at traffic-control center … [Star Tribune]
  • Top 20 Facebook Applications in Science and Medicine … [ScienceRoll]
    • Uncategorized

    For Mann and Mankind

    by Gene Ostrovsky on Nov 7, 2007 • 9:59 am

    mann photo For Mann and MankindIsrael’s Globes Online has an article about the legendary medical device inventor Alfred Mann, whom we had a chance to see a couple of years ago at the Frost&Sullivan Medical Devices Awards. The article, which for the most part concentrates on Mr. Mann’s interest in further developing Israel’s already vibrant medical devices industry, also has information about Mann’s biography and his outlook on the future of medicine.
    Read: For Mann and mankind …

    Diagnostics

    NuWav™ USB Ultrasound Probe

    by Gene Ostrovsky on Nov 7, 2007 • 1:03 am

    usb ultrasound probe NuWav™ USB Ultrasound Probe
    Having received FDA clearance, Direct Medical Systems has finally released its tiny USB plug-and-play ultrasound probe, a device that we reported about in May of 2006. The probe, marketed as NuWav by Laborie, is an ultrasound system that is plugged into the USB port of any computer, and, with the help of software, the two become a frugal ultrasound package that can be used in any primary care office.
    Press release: Direct Medical Systems Introduces the Smallest and Lightest Ultrasound System in the World…
    NuWav™ product page…
    Flashback: The Ppups: Plug and Play Ultrasound Probe System

    not funny / Pediatrics

    From the Insane Parents Dept: Prenatal Plastic Surgery

    by Josh Umbehr on Nov 7, 2007 • 12:52 am

    From the Insane Parents Dept: Prenatal Plastic SurgeryUntil the day comes when excited parents-to-be can affordably and accurately genetically alter junior to make a perfect race of sexy, intelligent, athletic humans, parents will have to settle for pre-natal plastic surgery. Maybe your offspring is ugly on the inside, but with a little help from modern medicine, you’ll never have to know.

    As a girl, Rhonda Hackensakis always felt self-conscious about her large nose. She spent her teenage years as a wallflower, remained an introverted 20-something and finally got a nose job at 33. Now pregnant with a girl, Hackensakis is joining many other Californians who are opting for controversial pre-natal surgeries.
    “I don’t want my own child to have to wait thirty years like I did. We’ve seen sonogram pictures that show she’s likely to have a sizeable schnoz, too. Why should she suffer from it when the science and technology now exists to make kids still more perfect little human beings, ready to take on the world the moment they emerge, and not predisposed to all the insecurities that result from something like that. If it makes just one kid more confident, it’ll all be worthwhile.”
    Doctors will break and reconstruct the fetus’ nose while still in the womb, using new tools designed by a husband-wife team of surgeons, Guy and Nicole O’Gist. “After surgery,” says Guy O’Gist, “we plop the baby back in the womb to cook for another dozen weeks or so, where embryonic fluids smooth those surgical lines that might be seen if done outside the womb.”

    Pre-natal rhinoplasty not for you? Don’t worry, there is a whole line of available cosmetic procedures to choose from.

    Other types of cosmetic surgery being done include liposuction (to remove unsightly baby fat), botox treatments (to remove wrinkles caused by cramped womb space), collagen treatments (to give babies fully, rounder lips) and chin, cheek and leg surgery (to prevent weak chins, flat cheeks and bow-leggedness)

    Oh, and in case you had your sense of humor surgically removed (pre or post-natally), this is a hoax.
    Full Story…
    (hat tip: Plasticized)

    Ophthalmology

    Developing Corneas from Sea Cucumbers

    by Josh Umbehr on Nov 6, 2007 • 7:52 am

    Each year thousands of patients require cornea transplants to restore their vision due to either disease or trauma. Now Garrett Matthews, Assistant Professor of Physics at University of North Carolina, hopes to help people “sea” better using sea cucumbers (BAD pun intended).

    When a person’s cornea – the transparent surface layer at the front of the eye – becomes damaged, it can be replaced using tissue from an organ donor. But there is a big shortage of corneal donors, as there are for every other type of organ.
    An ideal solution would be to develop an artificial cornea, but is has proved very hard to design and manufacture a structure so that it is optically clear in the middle and biocompatible at the edges.
    Now Garret Matthews, a biophysicist at the University of South Florida in Tampa, US, and his colleagues have come up with a design for artificial corneas that they say achieves this – using sea cucumbers.
    Sea cucumbers are sausage-shaped echinoderms, most species of which live on the sea floor in a variety of marine environments around of the globe.
    The team’s artificial cornea is made from tiny collagen fibres extracted from these sea cucumbers. When placed in a centrifuge, the fibres self assemble into layers in which the fibres are aligned vertically, a structure that is very similar to the tissue in mammalian corneas. The result is a thin layer of material that is transparent and biocompatible, as well as cheap and easy to make, says the team.


    New Scientist    …
    Patent Application…

    Diagnostics

    Miniaturized Wide Angle Ultrasound Probe

    by Josh Umbehr on Nov 6, 2007 • 7:46 am

    wide%20angle%20uts%20probe Miniaturized Wide Angle Ultrasound Probe Researchers have developed a novel “origami style” ultrasound probe that will give doctors a panoramic view of diseased blood vessels, greatly improving their ability to diagnose medical problems such as stroke.

    An ultrasound probe about the size of a grain of rice that could offer panoramic views from inside the human body is being tested by US researchers. They say it could be threaded through blood vessels in the brain or swallowed like a pill.
    The new device – about 1 millimetre across, 1 millimetre long and shaped like a hexagonal cylinder – affords a panoramic picture, showing the view from each side of the device, and to the front.
    Jingkuang Chen and colleagues from New Mexico University, Albuquerque, US, and National Taiwan University, Taiwan, created the probe using a novel “origami-style” manufacturing technique.
    They first patterned seven components, each capable of emitting ultrasound and listening for the resulting echo, on top of a flat silicon wafer. This silicon was then etched, allowing the wafer to be folded up to form the hexagonal tube.
    If these tests prove successful, the hope is that it could offer doctors a much more complete picture of new locations inside the human body. “It could be used to measure blood flow deep inside the brain,” says Chen, “to identify the early stages of strokes or other disease.”

    More at New Scientist Tech…
    Abstract at Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems…

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