Circulating tumor cells can point to the existence of cancer and provide information about its progression. Capturing these cells remains a tricky process. Dozens of devices have been developed that do their best to grab onto only the cancer cells being looked for, but they all suffer from problems such as poor efficiency, damage to […]
Tag: Diagnostics
Epidermal Display Screens for On-Body Flexible Medical Devices
Researchers from Nanjing University in China have developed a way to place displays on human skin that are flexible, safe, and don’t require a lot of power to run. The technology will certainly have implications for the field of wearable devices by allowing already existing flexible medical devices to display relevant biomedical information. Previously, flexible […]
First Portable Carb Metabolism Monitor Unveiled
Kyocera of Japan has just unveiled the first carbohydrate metabolism measurement device. The system is portable and users can assess their carbohydrate metabolism just about anywhere. The soon to be released product is a radial arterial pulse wave gyro sensor that analyzes pulse-wave patterns at the wrist. Kyocera hopes that this new device will help […]
First Medical “Suckable” Measures Glucose in Newborns
Newborns can present with a variety of conditions, but diagnosing such small and non-compliant patients is frequently a serious challenge. Identifying type 1 diabetes, for example, requires accessing the interstitial fluid in a baby’s skin, an unpleasant affair for everyone involved. Moreover, diagnostic technologies are generally only available inside hospitals and so conditions can go […]
Chip to Evaluate Health of Immune System from Blood Sample
Knowing how well a patient’s immune system is functioning may be very useful in diagnosing a disease and guiding the course of therapy. Researchers from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore are making this a reality, having developed a hybrid chip that assesses the health of white blood cells in a whole blood sample. The microfluidic […]
Contact-Free Baby Monitor Uses White Noise to Monitor Breathing
Echolocation technologies can detect objects by measuring how long it takes sound to bounce off them. This is used to detect submarines underwater, but now to also measure a child’s breathing while delivering soothing, and sleep inducing, white noise. Next week, researchers from the University of Washington will be at the MobiCom 2019 conference in […]
3D Liquid-Cell Electron Microscopy Imaging Now Possible
Electron microscopy revealed a world that exists at scales smaller than the wavelength of light. Advancements in this field have allowed scientists to visualize ever more objects and processes, but actually seeing living cells in 3D and within a liquid environment has been impossible. Now, a team of researchers from Penn State University, Virginia Tech, […]
Microfluidic Device for Rapid Lyme Disease Diagnosis
Researchers at Columbia University have developed a microfluidic device that can diagnose Lyme disease in as little as 15 minutes. The device is particularly accurate in identifying antibody biomarkers that are present during early stage Lyme disease, raising hopes that it could be useful in detecting cases of early infection in a doctor’s office, leading […]
iRhythm-Verily Partnership: Interview with iRhythm CEO Kevin King
iRhythm and Verily announced a partnership last month to “co-develop solutions intended to provide early warning, diagnosis and management for patients, particularly for those with silent or undiagnosed AF.” We spoke with iRhythm CEO Kevin King to understand how the two companies complement each other and how they can solve the problem together. Ben Ouyang, […]
Low Power MRI Helps Image Lungs, Brings Costs Down
Modern clinical MRIs usually have magnetic field strengths of 1.5 or 3.0 Tesla. These are pretty powerful magnets and it’s the reason that these devices are very expensive. While such strengths have been standard for a long time, the internal hardware and software beyond the magnets have been improving steadily. Now, researchers affiliated with the […]
Printing Custom Flexible Electronics Directly Onto Skin, Bandages, Medical Devices
Flexible electronics have the potential to help monitor, and even modulate, a number of physiological parameters. While stick-on heart monitors can be manufactured as one-size-fits-all, in applications such as electronic bandages that can monitor and treat a wound, it’s best to be able to create custom devices that suit each patient’s needs. Currently, making flexible […]
New Imaging Technique Reveals Deep Tumors, Helps Attack Them
Tumors deep inside the body can be very difficult to spot, track, and study. The brain, being surrounded by a thick skull, is particularly challenging to image using light, so MRI and CT are currently the go-to imaging modalities when looking at deeply seated tissues. Now, researchers at Stanford University are reporting the development of […]
Disc Pump for Less Obtrusive Ambulatory Blood Pressure Systems
TTP Ventus, the UK-based developer of the Disc Pump, has recently begun working on a new application for this technology – ambulatory blood pressure systems. The company claims that the Disc Pump, which is a miniaturized, quiet, and highly efficient pump, could revolutionize ambulatory blood pressure measurements. At present, 24-hour blood pressure monitors are commonly […]
Nanoparticles Inside Samples of Mucus to Measure COPD Development
Management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) suffers not only from a lack of effective therapies, but also from an inability to track the disease’s progression. Spirometers that measure how much air patients can displace using their lungs are the “gold standard,” but that standard is pretty poor in helping to predict how COPD will […]
Using FibroScan in The Clinic: Interview with Dr. Stephen A. Harrison
EchoSens creates non-invasive liver diagnosis medical devices. The company’s line of products, called FibroScan, work by measuring the speed of ultrasound waves as they move through liver tissue. This measurement can tell us about the state of the liver. For example, ultrasound waves move faster through fibrotic/scarred livers. EchoSens recently appointed Dominique Legros as their […]
New Chip for Microwave Imaging of Body
Today’s clinicians are limited to a few imaging modalities, primarily X-ray, CT, MRI, and ultrasound. Microwaves, in principle, can also be used as a useful way to look inside the body. Microwave radiation is non-ionizing, so should be safer than X-rays, but in practice microwave imagers, because of the electronics inside, have remained bulky tabletop […]
Flexible Vitals Sensors Made from Graphene Sensitized with Quantum Dots
At the ICFO – The Institute of Photonic Sciences, in Catalonia, Spain, researchers have come up with a way to use graphene to make flexible photodetectors to measure heart rate, blood oxygen concentration, and breathing rate. Additionally, the technology can also be used to measure UV levels coming from the Sun and to communicate the […]
Smart Phyjamas for Monitoring Physiological Signals at Night
Researchers from University of Massachusetts at Amherst have developed a new smart pajama, dubbed Phyjama, that can track physiological signals during sleep. Their work demonstrates that the technology can reliably measure heart rate, breathing rate, and sleep position during the course of the night. One day, advances like this can be incorporated into regular sleepwear, […]
Ultrasound Otoscope to Help Diagnose Middle Ear Infections
Diagnosing infections of the middle ear is prone to a great deal of subjectivity. Antibiotics being the typical treatment option, way too many patients are treated who are actually not infected. This can result in the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and a host of other problems. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems IPMS […]
Non-Invasive Liver Assessment: Interview with Echosens’ New CEO Dominique Legros
Echosens is a medical device company based in Paris, France that’s focused on diagnosing liver disease. Their technology, called FibroScan, uses ultrasonic waves to non-invasively measure the elasticity and absorption of the liver. These measurements can inform medical care teams about the amount of scar tissue and fatty content in a patient’s liver. The FibroScan […]