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Medgadget Goes to Macworld 2011

admin — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 12:18:31 +0000

This weekend, Medgadget was at Macworld 2011 in San Francisco to check out some of the latest and greatest products for the iPod, iPod Touch, iPad, iPhone, and Mac. Amongst the aisles and rows of mobile accessories, software, and eager Apple enthusiasts were a handful of medical apps designed to educate, alleviate health problems, and make your medical practice more efficient. Want to know where your flexor digiti minimi brevis is? There’s an app for that. Is your snoring so loud that your wife mistook it for an F-14 flyover? There’s an app for her…or that!

Check out our coverage below:

Here are links to the products we featured in the video:

Skeleton System Pro for iPad (Version 2 coming soon!)…

Snoring U…

MacPractice…

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The Best of Medgadget 2010

admin — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 12:23:15 +0000

With the year 2010 coming to a close, we’ve composed a list of the 10 best new medical technologies and devices of the past twelve months. As part of our job as Medgadget editors, we look at thousands of new products, news stories and press releases and from these we distill the most noteworthy for your reading pleasure. This year our efforts resulted in a total of approximately 1800 posts, so there was no lack of material to choose from for this best of list. Many new devices and technologies were creative, innovative, expected to make a long-lasting impact, and some others were plain silly. Here, in no particular order, are those that clearly stood out this year in a positive way:

GE V-scan Portable Ultrasound
In February, GE introduced its Vscan, a pocket-sized ultrasound device. It changed the definition of portable ultrasound, which previously referred to rather large laptop-sized devices. Despite its small dimensions, the Vscan includes features such as power-doppler, and the device is powerful enough for most applications, including emergency medicine, cardiac and obstetric ultrasounds. Although it is still far too expensive to give out to every doctor in those specialties, it is not hard to envision it becoming a tool as indispensable as the stethoscope one day.

The iPad
The hype around the iPad has not gone unnoticed in the medical world. Previous (medical grade) tablets did not make a significant impact. However, the iPad has sparked a rich ecosystem of medical apps and even some add-on medical devices. We had over 50 posts referring to the iPad one way or another. Highlights include the introduction, the first clinical tests, the first appearance in an operating theater and several great apps including reference apps, radiology viewers and electronic health records. With the iPad 2 expected in 2011 we expect no end to to the stream of news about this wonderful device. Also tablets from competing manufacturers are starting to mature and might stiffen up the competition in the next year.

Artificial life
In May, the J. Craig Venter Institute announced it had for the first time replaced the DNA of a bacterium with a complete set of synthetic DNA. This was the result of 15 years of work, with the aim of creating a living, replicating cell. The process currently still means recreating an existing genome rather than designing one from scratch, and still needs existing cells to put the DNA into. Meanwhile, some living tissues were connected to chips in order to better study them. In June, a living and breathing lung on a chip was announced, with the researchers working on getting other organs connected as well. Other scientists managed to grow individual neurons on microchips and neurons within neural networks got pinned down for study.

Retinal Implant
In March, the company Retina Implant AG from Reutlingen, Germany reported the first results of human trials with the firm’s subretinal electronic chips in blind volunteers. Implantation was successful in 11 patients without any adverse events. In November actual results of the performance of the implant itself in the first three volunteers were published. The previously blind persons could locate bright objects on a dark table and one of them could name objects like a fork or knife and differentiate between various kinds of fruit. After the pacemaker and the cochlear implant, this may well be the next electronic device to be widely implanted in patients.

Hemolung Respiratory Dialysis

Mechanical ventilation is often a life-saving intervention in critically-ill patients. However, it has some serious drawbacks, including the need for sedation, the risk of ventilator associated pneumonia, and intubation or tracheostomy related complications. ALung Technologies’ Hemolung overcomes many of these drawbacks by using dialysis to perform respiratory gas exchange in a process similar to extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. During therapy, the patient can stay awake, allowing him to eat and communicate. In February, the first patient was successfully treated with the device, and clinical trials are currently underway. If successful, this could revolutionize the practice of medicine in the ICU.

Ardian Symplicity
The best innovations are simple and effective, and these criteria both seem to apply to the Symplicity catheter system. In addition, it targets one of the most common chronic conditions affecting the western population: hypertension. By reducing or eliminating the sympathetic innervation of the renal arteries, it reduces both the pathologic central sympathetic drive to the kidney and the renal contribution to central sympathetic hyperactivity. In an initial clinical trial, the procedure reduced blood pressure by 30/10 mmHg without causing any serious complications. A one time catheter treatment versus lifetime-long treatment with antihypertensive drugs might be a realistic choice soon.

Telemedicine
Telemedicine has been a promise for many years, slowly coming to fruition. This year some significant leaps were made. Airstrip technologies, which previously released a remote obstetric monitoring app, in August released remote critical care and cardiology monitoring solutions for the iPhone. Basically, it gives you a vital signs monitor for any connected ICU or cardiac patient right in your pocket. Meanwhile, Littmann keeps improving its teleauscultation offering, adding scope-to-scope teleauscultation. On the treatment front, we saw the first remote cardiac catheterization, transcontinental anesthesia and all-robotic surgery and anesthesia.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging
MRI is one of the most advanced diagnostic techniques in clinical use. It is still undergoing rapid development giving rise to new applications, better image quality and shorter acquisition times. A few of the highlights this year were real-time MRI of moving organs, further digitalization of the hardware, combined PET/MRI devices and, as the most curious of all, a live birth within an MRI scanner.

Skin Bioprinting for Burn Wounds
Burn wounds are something that modern medicine has not yet found many effective treatments for yet. However, this year we saw a device that could print skin grafts to cover the burn wounds, accelerating recovery and minimizing scar tissue. The prototype device was tested on artificially created full-thickness skin wounds in nude mice, resulting in much faster wound recovery.

General Purpose Pathogen Detector
Identifying the causative organism of an infection often takes several days, while broad spectrum antibiotics are given in the meantime. The Lawrence Livermore Microbial Detection Array might change all that. It promises to detect about 2,000 viruses and 900 bacteria within 24 hours. Current methods are limited to detecting any from about 50 organisms in one test. And the next-generation of the device is already in development, with 2.1 million probes, able to detect thousands of bacteria and viruses and in addition thousands of fungi and about 75 protozoa.

That’s it! If we missed anything, the comments section is open for your additions. With this list, we wrap up the year 2010. In 2011 we will be back with more news and some major improvements to our website. We wish you all a happy new year!

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FDA Approves Test for Cardiac Biomarker Galactin-3

admin — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 12:10:11 +0000

BG Medicine‘s 96-well microtiter plate-based ELISA for Galectin-3, a biomarker that’s correlated with prognosis in patients with chronic heart failure now has the FDA’s stamp of approval. Galectin-3 is a protein that binds and activates myofibroblasts in damaged heart tissue, which leads to collagen synthesis and subsequently problematic fibrosis.

Though the current use case for galectin-3 is simply to get a better sense for the probability of adverse disease outcomes in patients with heart failure, ideally, treatments would be found that work best in patients with high galectin-3 levels. Believers include Abbott, Alere, and bioMérieux, who have all entered agreements with BG Medicine to commercialize the assay for use in their own systems.

From the press release:

Galectin-3 is a protein that has been shown to play an important role in the development and progression of heart failure in approximately 30% of the patients diagnosed with heart failure.i This galectin-3 mediated form of heart failure is associated with progressive fibrosis, or stiffening, in the heart muscle, which impairs the heart’s ability to pump.ii The role of galectin-3 in heart failure was first established in 2004iii, and the clearance of the company’s Galectin-3 blood test now for the first time allows physicians to use this product in the evaluation of patients diagnosed with heart failure.

“The availability of a galectin-3 test to identify high risk patients with cardiovascular disease and myocardial fibrosis represents another step toward the goal of enabling more efficient targeting of therapeutic approaches to reduce fibrosis in patients with chronic heart failure,” said Bertram Pitt, M.D., F.A.C.C., professor of internal medicine, Division of Cardiology, University of Michigan School of Medicine.

Product page: Galectin-3 …

Press release: BG Medicine Announces FDA 510(k) Clearance of its Galectin-3 Test for Use in Patients with Chronic Heart Failure …

Interpreting Galectin-3 Results …

Image credit: Wellcome Images: Illustration depicting the concept of ‘heart pain’ in angina pectoris.

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First All-Robotic Surgery: McSleepy Meets DaVinci

admin — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 12:13:46 +0000

Doctors at McGill University Health Centre, Canada, have recently performed the world’s first all-robotic surgery. The locally developed McSleepy put the patient on anesthesia, while surgeons used the well-known DaVinci robot to perform a prostatectomy. It was the first time these two robotic systems were combined.

From the press release:

“Providing anesthesia for robotic prostatectomy can be challenging because of the specific patient positioning and the high degree of muscle relaxation necessary to maintain perfect conditions for the surgical team,” added Dr. Hemmerling. “Automated anesthesia delivery via McSleepy guarantees the same high quality of care every time it is used, independent from the subjective level of expertise. It can be configured exactly to the specific needs of different surgeries, such as robotic surgery.”

“Obviously, there is still some work needed to perfect the all robotic approach – from technical aspects to space requirements for the robots,” added Dr. Hemmerling. “Whereas robots have been used in surgery for quite some time, anesthesia has finally caught up. Robots will not replace doctors but help them to perform to the highest standards.”

This first test was successful and now the team plans to expand their tests to more and larger types of surgery.

Press release: McSleepy meets DaVinci…

Brief about the Spine Surgery Lots of different types of surgeries are now available which...

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XVIVO Reveals 3D Microscopic World of Mitochondria

admin — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 12:54:24 +0000

Our friends at XVIVO, a scientific visualization company from Rocky Hill, CT, have just released a brand new animation that will blow your mind as it takes you on a ride of biochemical metabolic processes inside mitochondria. The video, titled “Powering the Cell: Mitochondria,” was developed together with Harvard University, and is the second installment to the super popular “The Inner Life of the Cell” animation.

Make sure to watch it full screen:

From a press announcement obtained by Medgadget:

“Inner Life of the Cell” was originally intended for undergraduate life sciences students at Harvard. However, the animation went viral after being shown in the Siggraph Electronic Theater in 2006. The mix of publicity, criticism and acclaim proved that there was an unmet demand for compelling scientific visuals that educate as well as inspire. “It’s quite clear that we understand the world primarily through sight,"says Dr. Robert Lue Ph.D., Director of Life Sciences Education at Harvard and a professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology. "Somehow we don’t use that in teaching science as we really should.” Both Harvard and XVIVO received letters from students, teachers, and scientists all over the world, asking when the next chapter would be available. Well, the wait is over.

The newly released four and a half minute animation, “Powering the Cell: Mitochondria,” transports students into the three-dimensional microscopic world of mitochondria. The animation highlights the production of Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) – mobile molecules which store chemical energy derived from the breakdown of foodstuffs. ATP molecules act as a kind of currency, imparting chemical energy to power most of the cell’s activities.

Dr. Lue points out “The production of ATP is a fundamental process in all living organisms, and here we show it in the context of an animal cell’s mitochondria. It is the combination of many proteins specifically arranged within mitochondria that allow this amazing process to occur, so we wanted to visualize a more complete picture. This presented both the challenge and exciting opportunity to represent several aspects of mitochondrial structure and activity that have never been visualized before. We hope this will add to the viewers’ understanding and appreciation of one of the cornerstones of metabolism.”

Project page: Powering the Cell: Mitochondria @ XVIVO …

BioVisions …

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Economist Article on Tempus by RDT

admin — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:05:42 +0000

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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iPads to be Trialed for Use in Medical Education

admin — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 12:41:32 +0000

Students commencing medical school and master’s of medicine program at Stanford this year will all get an Apple iPad. The school is trialing a program to see whether the devices are practical to integrate into the academic curriculum.

Before you dismiss this as medical education being sacrificied in the name of fanboy hype, consider this — when some of our editors were in medical school, the semesterly (mandatory) fee for handouts and photocopies was about the cost of a lower-end iPad. And that was years ago. We can only imagine the charges now. So moving the medical education culture of endless handouts and notebooks over to a compact tablet device could be very smart. More from Stanford officials:

The decision to provide the devices was prompted by a desire to give students flexible access to the content that they need whether it is a virtual cadaver in dissection lab, annotated lecture slides and videos in the classroom, or journal articles for evidence-based practice in clinic.

“We want to explore the use of iPads and other technologies to help students access the enormous amount of medical knowledge that is being produced constantly,” said Charles Prober, MD, the school’s senior associate dean for medical education. “Part of the challenge facing medical students, and all doctors, is the overwhelming amount of information. Devices like the iPad may be able to help users access that pool of knowledge.”

The school will monitor the use of the iPads through regular surveys to help determine how helpful they are to students, pointing out that past experiments with similar electronic devices, such as the Kindle, in academic settings haven’t been successful.

“We really don’t know yet how the incoming medical students will use them,” said Henry Lowe, MD, senior associate dean for information resources and technology. But, as a physician using an iPad himself, he’s found the device to be extremely helpful and believes it is growing in popularity among doctors.

“Physicians are a mobile group,” Lowe said. “They’re moving around from clinic to clinic, from patient to patient. … I’ve seen a variety of reports from across the country saying that physicians have seized on the iPad as a helpful device.”

Press release: iPads to be distributed to incoming class by Stanford medical school …

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Medgadget Now Available in Spanish

admin — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 21:39:48 +0000

Medical technology affects just about every person in the world in one way or another. Because we write in English, a majority of the world’s population can’t read this site, and automatic online translators simply can’t translate industry specific, professional material. We believe in expanding access to our medical content and so would like to present Spanish Medgadget. We are now professionally translating our posts into Spanish, and if you prefer Medgadget en Español, head on over to es.medgadget.com or to Medgadget Español on Facebook.

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Protectus Granted Patent For Self-Sheathing Safety Syringe

admin — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 05:38:05 +0000

Minneapolis, MN based Protectus Medical Devices, Inc. has announced that it has been awarded a patent for the spring-activated mechanism used in its line of safety syringes. The FDA cleared device reduces the risk of needlestick injuries through the use of a spring mechanism which automatically sheaths the needle should the user lose control of the syringe.

More about the device from its product page:

The Protectus Safety Syringe design meets all aspects of the functional definition of “Self-Sheathing” mandated by Federal Law and is designed to reduce or obviate all dangers of accidental needlestick injuries to healthcare workers who could be pricked, scraped or injected by a needle before or after it has been injected and withdrawn from patients and therefore potentially carrying infectious bloodborne microorganisms. The Protectus Safety Syringe design utilizes a spring-biased locking sheath that is/becomes automatically locked and safe if the user does not have or loses intentional control of the device. The device has a user-friendly slide collar lock that allows the syringe to be used in essentially the same manner as any standard syringe with little special training or in-service instruction.

Demo video explaining the unique nature of Protectus…

Press release: US Patent Allowed for Spring Action That Separates Protectus Innovative Safety Syringe From All Others…

Product page: Protectus Hypodermic Safety Syringe…

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Blood Glucose Monitor with Native iPhone Support

admin — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:40:12 +0000

AgaMatrix, a maker of popular blood glucose monitors, is planning on releasing a connectivity package to interface their Jazz Meter with Apple’s iPhone. Once the FDA approves the firm’s WaveSense Direct Connect Cable, this may become the first fully licensed medical device specifically designed to work with an iPhone. Diabetic iPhone fanatics can sign up at the WaveSense product page for an email update when the product comes to market.

Result Tracking
Record glucose results, carb/insulin input, or a combination of both.

Notes
With the notes feature you can put high, low, or great numbers in context. If you take a little too much insulin and experience a low result you can note it. If you have a carb rich meal and go high you can note that. Create custom notes and better understand your glucose results.

Color Coding
The glucose score cards are color coded so you can easily see when you have had high or low results.

Log Book
Review your results over time and find opportunities to improve your diabetes care.

Trend Chart
Find patterns in a visual representation of your numbers over time

Email
If you ever need a second opinion on your numbers you can share them with your trusted health care team. You choose what gets sent to who and when

More from Amy Tenderich at Diabetes Mine…

Product page: WaveSense iPhone Direct Connect…

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