UroViu Corporation, a company based in Bellevue, Washington, won FDA clearance for its Uro-V single-use diagnostic cystoscope. The semi-flexible disposable device is intended for assessing the urethra and urinary bladder in women while reducing the chances of infection and increasing patient comfort. The system consists of a reusable handle, v (Read more...)
Author: Medgadged
PhoneSoap Med+ Cleans Smartphones, Tablets, Stethoscopes with UV
Considering that almost every person entering a hospital is carrying a smartphone, there’s constant worry that pathogens have an easy way to invade the very places they need to be kept out of the most. Now a new device is coming to market that was designed to quickly disinfect phones, tablets, and other small devices […]
ProxiDiagnost N90 Digital Radiography-Fluoroscopy Combo System Cleared in U.S.
Philips landed FDA clearance for its brand new ProxiDiagnost N90 Digital Radiography-Fluoroscopy (DRF) system. The combined system can be used for nearby fluoroscopy and digital X-ray radiography, allowing an installation to be utilized for many use cases that would normally require two separate systems. The firm touts the image quality o (Read more...)
Notes from WIRED Health 2018 at Francis Crick Institute
Set in its new home of the Francis Crick Institute, WIRED Health 2018 brought together world leaders and change-makers in cancer, aging, artificial intelligence, government, medical devices, and pharmaceuticals, to name but a few. Alongside the main event, cutting-edge medtech companies demonstrated their new technologies, and budding start-up (Read more...)
Convesaid, a Hemostat Powder Spray That Can’t Cause Embolisms
Team Consulting, a firm based out of an old barn in Cambridge, UK that develops medical devices, one being the EpiPen, has now come up with a hemostat powder sprayer that cannot cause embolisms. When spraying a powder onto a leaking vein, the air that pushes the powder can enter the exposed blood flow and […]
Low-Cost 3D-Printed Stethoscope for Low-Resource Areas
Scientists at the University of Western Ontario, aka Western University, have developed a 3D-printed stethoscope. The device costs just $3 to produce and takes less than three hours to print, but maintains the acoustic quality of more expensive stethoscopes. The researchers hope that the device could be useful in low-resource settings, where medica (Read more...)
Osmosis Educational Platform Grows Audience to 500,000 Current & Future Clinicians
Medgadget editors are really passionate about improving health care and have gone on to start companies such as Omada and OssoVR. Add another “O” startup to that list: Osmosis, co-founded by our own editor Shiv Gaglani when he was a medical student at Johns Hopkins. The company aims to provide the simplest, most efficient, and [… (Read more...)
Scientists Develop Technique to Mass Produce Drug Delivery Nanovesicles
Numerous technologies that use and help nanovesicles to deliver drugs to disease sites have been developed over the past few years, as any regular reader of Medgadget can attest to. We’re now at a stage when figuring out how to manufacture so-called extracellular nanovesicles (ENV) in millions, properly targeted, and on demand is a major [&he (Read more...)
Accurate Cuff-less Blood Pressure Measurement on a Smartphone
Blood pressure is a critical vital sign and patients, particularly those with cardiovascular conditions, are often directed to take readings on their own on a regular basis. Of course too few of them do as prescribed, and the lack of motivation has a lot to do with the fact that blood pressure measurement devices tend […]
aerSleep System for Obstructive Sleep Apnea (Interview)
TTP Ventus, UK-based developer of Disc Pump, a tiny, quiet, and very efficient pump, and Sommetrics, US-based creator of aerSleep negative-pressure treatment system for obstructive sleep apnea, teamed up to develop the slimmed-down tetherless aerSleep system. aerSleep has just recently been approved for marketing to patients in Canada. Obstructive (Read more...)
Body on a Chip to Study Drug Effects on Multiple Organ Systems Simultaneously
Researchers at MIT have developed an advanced microfluidic system that encompasses tissues from up to 10 organs. The device allows scientists to test the effects of drug candidates on multiple organ systems simultaneously. Screening drug candidates in this way reduces the chance of unexpected side-effects during subsequent clinical trials, and redu (Read more...)
Diamond-coated 3D Printed Materials for Improved Medical Implants
Scientists at RMIT University in Australia have developed a new technique that allows them to coat 3D printed titanium objects with a layer of diamonds. The coating results in improved properties for medical implants, such as reduced bacterial attachment, enhanced proliferation of mammalian cells, and increased integration with living bone tissue. (Read more...)
ACUSON Bonsai, a Powerful Cardio Ultrasound in a Small, Portable Package
At the just concluded American College of Cardiology’s 67th Annual Scientific Session and Expo, Siemens Healthineers introduced its new ACUSON Bonsai portable cardiovascular ultrasound. The company touts the system’s powerful cardio imaging and measurement capabilities, quick setup and operation, and a compact and easy to (Read more...)
Interview with Devyn Smith PhD, COO of Sigilon Therapeutics
Sigilon Therapeutics is a Cambridge, MA-based biotech company developing innovative therapeutics by encapsulating cells in a novel coating that renders them invisible to the immune system. The engineered cells contained in the company’s particles can provide long-term continuous therapy for a range of chronic disorders, including hemophilia a (Read more...)
Brains of People Using Prostheses Think of Their Devices as Real Hands
Building highly capable prosthetic devices of the future will have to involve getting the brain to better recognize an artificial appendage as its own. This finding has materialized thanks to an interesting study performed by researchers at University College London. The researchers recruited healthy volunteers and those with one missing hand, incl (Read more...)
Peptide Hydrogel Promotes Tissue Growth to Heal Without Drugs
Rice University researchers studying how different drugs, proteins, and cells embedded in peptide hydrogel can boost healing and promote tissue formation, discovered that the hydrogel itself exhibits powerful therapeutic properties. Their self-assembling multidomain peptide (MDP) with the amino acid sequence K2(SL)6K2 can be injected into tiss (Read more...)
Virtual Reality Brings Groups of Med Students Into Live OR
Teaching medical students the workflows of complex surgeries and other invasive procedures requires them to be close to the action, but you can only stuff so many people into an OR that’s already optimized not to waste space. At the University of Virginia School of Medicine clinicians are using cheap, readily available virtual reality technol (Read more...)
Medtronic’s Guardian Connect Continuous Glucometer with Predictive Capabilities Approved by FDA
The FDA granted Medtronic its approval for the Guardian Connect continuous glucose monitor. It’s intended for diabetes patients between 14 and 75 years of age that tend to get multiple daily insulin injections. A small wireless device, the Guardian Sensor 3, is attached to the skin, which takes regular blood samples to test for sugar [&hellip (Read more...)
Flexible Sensor Could Replace Frequent Blood Tests with Continuous Sweat Monitoring
Researchers at the University of Glasgow, UK have created a wearable sensor that is capable of measuring sweat pH, which could help patients with chronic conditions avoid the need for finger-prick blood tests. The flexible sensor, which measures around 10×10 mm can stretch with natural movements and elongate by up to 53% without compromising (Read more...)
New Canon Aplio i900 Cardiovascular Ultrasound Unveiled
At the American College of Cardiology 2018 annual meeting, Canon has unveiled the latest version of its Aplio i900 cardiovascular ultrasound system that can be used for advanced cases such as transcatheter implantation procedures. The system features a number of 4D capabilities such as 4D TEE transcatheter procedure guidance, as (Read more...)