Varian is introducing the Halcyon, a new image-guided volumetric intensity modulated radiotherapy system that the firm says was designed, essentially from the ground up, to speed up and make easier the imaging, therapy, and even installation of the machine and the training required to use it. Built-in workflows have reduced the number of steps from beginning […]
Author: Medgadged
Abiomed Unveils 3rd Generation Impella CP Heart Pump for PCI and Cardiogenic Shock
Abiomed, the maker of implantable cardiac assistive devices, has just announced its new 3rd generation Impella CP heart pump. The device is designed to assist the native heart during percutaneous coronary interventional (PCI) procedures that can be difficult to tolerate for fragile patients, as well as to stabilize those post cardiac infarct that resulted in cardiogenic shock. […]
A Day at The Future of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Healthcare Conference
At the end of April leaders and innovators from the fields of artificial intelligence and healthcare gathered in Old Street—London’s digital tech hub, affectionately known as “silicon roundabout.” The event was hosted by Innovatemedtec in partnership with Aviva Ventures and brought together participants from academia, industry, and London’s substantial start-up scene. The day began with […]
Sympfiny System for Dispensing Multiparticulate Medications
Multiparticulate medications can consist of beads, mini-tablets and microspheres encased in a coating that hides their flavor and prevents them from being dissolved before they reach the stomach. Benefits include the ability to make these medications have just about any flavor, to make them release the drug at a pre-programmed rate, and even release it in […]
Abbott Releases First Insertable Cardiac Monitor That Works with Your Smartphone
Abbott received the European CE Mark and is introducing its Confirm Rx Insertable Cardiac Monitor (ICM). Still sporting St. Jude Medical’s logo, now part of Abbott, the Confirm Rx features wireless Bluetooth connectivity to a paired app on the patient’s smartphone. This allows for transmission of cardiac event data to the patient’s cardiologist from just about […]
Highlights from the Medical Alley Association’s 2017 Annual Meeting
The Medical Alley Association is a community of organizations that share the noble goal of promoting medical innovation and driving healthcare reform worldwide. More than 600 companies make up the Association, including giants like Medtronic, Mayo Clinic, 3M, and Abbott. The Association was founded in 1984 in Minnesota, a state with a long history of […]
Scopis Introduces Mixed Reality to Simplify Surgical Navigation
Scopis, a surgical navigation company, announced a mixed reality surgical navigation system that uses the Microsoft HoloLens for spinal surgery applications. It combines current surgical navigation technologies with Microsoft’s augmented reality headset to show surgeons where they’re drilling into in real-time, without shifting their gaze away from the surgical field. The surgeon wears the HoloLens, and sees both the patient and […]
Elekta Releases Unity, The First Commercial High-Field MR-Linac System
Elekta, the famous Swedish maker of radiation therapy, radiosurgery, and brachytherapy systems, is finally releasing a linear accelerator therapy and magnetic resonance imaging scanner in one unified system. Many physicists and engineers thought that this would be impossible, as quickly moving charged particles shooting out of an accelerator are strongly affected by a magnetic field. But […]
Automatic Injectable System for Blood Glucose Control
Researchers at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill may have developed a rudimentary artificial pancreas capable of releasing insulin in response to real-time changes in blood glucose content. Their technique involves attaching a modified form of insulin to glucosamine, a chemical that binds to glucose transporters on red blood […]
Olympus Releases New Endotherapy Tools in U.S.
At the Digestive Disease Week event in Chicago this week, Olympus is releasing a few endoscopic devices including the SB Knife monopolar ESD (Endoscopic Submucosal Dissection) knife and two new sphincterotomes, the CleverCut3V Distal Wireguided Oblique Tip and the CleverCut3V Distal Wireguided Short Bend Tip. The SB Knife is designed to remove early gastric cancers that have yet […]
Molecular Mechanism Shoots Drugs When Specific Antibody Detected
Researchers from the University of Montreal, Canada and University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy have developed a molecular “slingshot” capable of firing a drug into the nearby environment when triggered by a biochemical marker. The slingshot is actually a helix of synthetic DNA the ends of which are designed to stick to a particular antibody. When […]
Highlights from 16th Annual Design of Medical Devices Conference
The University of Minnesota and their industry sponsors held the 16th Design of Medical Devices Conference, touted by the organizers as the world’s largest premiere medical devices conference. Hundreds of biomedical engineers, students, physicians, and industry representatives traveled from all over the world to gather in a truly unique atmosphere. The state of Minnesota has […]
Tecla-e Wireless Lets People with Limited Mobility Control Variety of Digital Devices
Komodo OpenLab, a company based in Toronto, Canada, released a new device that lets severely paralyzed people operate Android and iOS tablets and smartphones, as well as other devices, using standard accessibility tools such as sip and puff controllers, buttons, and switches. The new Tecla-e provides wireless connectivity with the devices it controls, which can […]
First Alzheimer’s Patient Treated with Focused Ultrasound to Open Blood-Brain Barrier
The blood-brain barrier prevents almost all potentially therapeutic drugs from passing into the brain. This has been a major roadblock for clinical neurology, but we may have a solution, perhaps a partial one, in the form of focused ultrasound. The first Alzheimer’s patient has just been treated using ultrasound to open up the blood-brain barrier […]
Introducing Loop Vital Signs Wearable Monitor from SpryHealth
SpryHealth, previously Echo Labs, is announcing the launch of Loop, a clinical-grade wearable designed to enable improved health outcomes through continuous vital sign monitoring and early detection of clinical deterioration. SpryHealth was founded by Pierre-Jean “PJ” Cobut and Elad Ferber out of the Stanford Graduate School of Business and StartX, a Stanford accelerator. They started the company to enable proactive […]
LOCalizer Non-Radioactive Breast Lesion Localization System Now FDA Cleared
Tucson, Arizona-based Faxitron won FDA clearance to introduce its LOCalizer radio frequency identification (RFID) lesion localization system intended for tagging and subsequently honing in on breast lesions during surgeries. Radioactive tags and implanted wires are currently being used to mark neoplastic and suspicious breast lesions. Unlike radioactive isotopes, the LOCalizer doesn’t emit ionizing radiation and […]
New Wireless Power Technology to Energize Medical Implants Deep Inside Body
A collaboration of scientists from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Draper Laboratory, an engineering firm, have been working on a wireless system to power electronic implants placed within the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Batteries are currently the only practical option for most implants, but their lifetime is limited and it is difficult to […]
Interscope EndoRotor Now Cleared in U.S. as New Way to Remove Colon Lesions
Interscope, a company out of Worcester, MA, landed FDA clearance for its EndoRotor device that, in a single step, dissects, resects, and retrieves mucosal lesions within the GI tract. In the U.S. the device is indicated for use within the colon, shaving off diseased mucosa in conjunction with endoscopic mucosal resectiont (EMR), and sucking up […]
How to Create the Impossible: Interview With XPRIZE Runner-Up Team Dynamical Biomarkers Group
For the past five years, Taiwan-based Dynamical Biomarkers Group has been developing a prototype device which pairs diagnostic algorithms with analytical methodology in a user-friendly device, all controlled through a smartphone. For their efforts, they were selected as the second-place finalist of the Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE and received $1 million toward further development of their Tricorder. […]
GalaFORM 3D Scaffold FDA Cleared for Plastic, Reconstructive Surgeries
Galatea Surgical, a division of Tepha, a company based in Lexington, Massachusetts, won FDA clearance for its GalaFORM 3D scaffold, a device designed for use during reconstructive and plastic surgery to support, lift, and reinforce soft tissues. The scaffold is made of a monofilament consisting of the naturally occuring poly-4-hydroxybutyrate (P4HB) enzyme. The material slowly […]