The presence of relatively high concentrations of nitrite (NO2−) in exhaled breath may be indicative of the presence of inflammatory processes within the airways, and so measuring it may be an effective way of performing early detection of the onset of the symptoms of asthma and other respiratory conditions. Devices that are able to measure [ (Read more...)
Tag: Diagnostics
Optoacoustics May Allow Surgeons See Tumor Margins for Accurate Excisions
While doctors have gotten pretty good at finding and excising tumors, identifying whether they have been removed in their entirety remains a challenge. Histology slides are today’s standard, but processing the tissue, freezing, slicing it, staining, imaging, and analysis take much too long. Patients are often sent home, only to find out later (Read more...)
Small, Cheap, Disposable Sensors for Detecting Organic Volatile Compounds in Breath
At the University of Illinois, researchers have developed small, extremely sensitive detectors of volatile organic compounds, seemingly capable of sensing such chemicals at concentrations even our noses can’t detect. While there are a lot of applications for such technology in medicine and other fields, the researchers chose to detect am (Read more...)
Non-Contact Respiratory Rate Sensor Built Into a Cotton T-Shirt
At the Université Laval in Quebec City, Canada, researchers have developed a respiration sensor built into a t-shirt that can be sampled by a nearby radio device. The idea is that patients in a hospital would wear a lightweight, comfortable shirt that doesn’t have any wires, while their breathing rate would be discreetly moni (Read more...)
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 o (Read more...)
Multi-Modality Imaging Probe to Diagnose Cancer Inside Body, Help Avoid Biopsies
These days, identifying cancerous tissue within the body requires a biopsy and a review of the extracted sample in a pathology lab. A team of German scientists have been working toward a way of spotting tumors using an endoscopic approach that doesn’t involve actually having to take samples. They’ve developed a multi-modality laser-base (Read more...)
Disposable Sensor Measures Sweat Volume, Salinity to Help Prevent Dehydration
At the South by Southwest (SXSW) event in Austin, Texas this week, the National Kidney Foundation has partnered with materials researchers to show off a sweat-monitoring patch as a way to raise awareness of staying hydrated. Developed at the laboratory of John Rogers, now at Northwestern University, who has been a pioneer of flexible electroni (Read more...)
New Smart Sensor for Measuring Glucose from Skin
The sweat excreted by our skin contains small amounts of glucose that correlate with the concentration of glucose in the blood. Various technical challenges, such as small sample volume, temperature differences, and movement of the skin, have prevented sweat-based glucometry beyond the research lab. Scientists at the Institute for Basic Scienc (Read more...)
Koogeek S1 Smart Health Scale Review
Koogeek sent us another device from its line of IoT products to review. The Koogeek S1 Smart Health Scale comes as one of the lower-costing digital connected scales on the market. It takes eight measurements: weight, body mass index (BMI), fat mass, lean mass, total body water, bone mass, visceral fat, and basal metabolic rate (BMR). It [ (Read more...)
New Technique Spots Pheomelanin in Pale Patients at Risk of Dangerous Melanoma
People with light colored skin, and particularly orange tinted redheads, have high levels of pheomelanin, a type of melanin, in their skin. It is correlated with amelanotic melanoma, a nasty skin cancer that’s difficult not only to treat, but to detect in the first place. This is because pheomelanin within amelanotic melanomas blend (Read more...)
Lasers Measure Cells’ Stiffness to Identify Neoplastic Ones
Unusual softness or stiffness is often an indicator of the presence of cancer in what otherwise may look like healthy tissue. There are already devices on the market that feel how elastic a given tissue is, but they come in contact and sample a very large number of cells at once. Researchers at Duke University have […]
This post Lasers (Read more...)
New Method for Integrating Flexible Electronics Into Skin Patches
At the Waseda University in Japan, researchers have come up with a new, cheaper way of producing electronic devices that are flexible, elastic, and adhere to the skin. This development may help body monitoring electronic skin patches that interface with smartphone apps to become commonly used in medicine and by consumers. The technology relies on&n (Read more...)
RJL Systems Launches the Quantum V BIA Device for Body Composition Analysis
RJL Systems, a company based in Clinton Township, Michigan, launched last week the latest successor in their line of Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) products, the Quantum V. The Michigan-based company, often considered the originators and chief innovators of BIA instrumentation for use in determining body composition, has regularly worked to (Read more...)
A Breathalyzer to Detect Inflammatory Signs of Influenza Infection
Detecting diseases non-invasively by sampling exhaled breath is a growing field. Previously, we featured Owlstone Medical, who have developed breath sampling devices to store breath samples for later analysis along with an integrated unit for the detection of lung cancer biomarkers. Recent research on breath testing has suggested that viral in (Read more...)
Tiny Acoustofluidic Chip Separates Nanoparticles from Liquid Samples to Detect Disease
Scientists at Duke University have developed a way of concentrating nanoparticles inside a small device using only sound waves. This achievement may help introduce portable diagnostics that rely on attaching nanoparticles to biomarkers such as proteins and measuring how many find their targets. There is now a large selection of nanoparticles, (Read more...)