Provista Diagnostics, a company based in New York City, has developed the Videssa Breast blood-based proteomic test to detect breast cancer. At present, after an abnormal mammogram doctors are faced with a difficult decision: whether to carry out an invasive biopsy or not. “When a mammogram yields an abnormal result, the challenge for ev (Read more...)
Tag: Oncology
Chemical Engineers Help Nanoparticles Better Target Brain Tumors
Getting drugs into the brain by cloaking them within nanoparticles that can sneak through the blood-brain barrier has been the focus of a lot of nanotechnology research over the past few years. There’s quite a bit of progress toward that goal, including some notable successes. Because of this progress, scientists are coming to the realization (Read more...)
Interview with Harshal Shah, Head of Oncology Drug Delivery at Cambridge Consultants
Thanks to the ongoing advancements in standards of care and gradual improvements in more targeted therapeutics, some argue that cancer is slowly turning into a chronic disease, and with it bringing about a host of new challenges for oncology care. These challenges are also opening up a variety of new opportunities for technical innovations that [&h (Read more...)
Breast Cancer Detection Using Ultrasound: Interview with Dr. Georgia Giakoumis Spear, NorthShore University Health System
Detecting breast cancer is of vital importance in terms of treating it early and effectively. Mammography is the gold standard in routinely screening women for breast cancer. However, in a subset of women with dense breast tissue, mammography doesn’t work as well as one would hope. In fact, it can miss up to a third […]
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Robots Powered by Clinical MRI Machine to Work Inside Body
At the University of Houston researchers are working to develop diagnostic and therapeutic devices that can be steered and powered using the magnetic field of an MRI scanner. So far the researchers have been able to get blocks about two centimeters on a side to move in predetermined ways inside a specially-built box. They hope […]
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New Chemo Drug Eluting Beads for Liver Tumors Cleared in Europe
BTG, a company based in London, UK, won European CE Mark clearance for its DC Bead LUMI radiopaque drug-eluting bead. This is the first such device available in Europe. The beads can be loaded with either doxorubicin or irinotecan, commonly used chemo agents, and injected into tumors within the liver. Their radiopaque quality, thanks to a (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 […]
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Vortex Unveils VTX-1 Liquid Biopsy System for Easy Capture of Circulating Tumor Cells
Vortex Biosciences of Menlo Park, California just launched its VTX-1 Liquid Biopsy System, a device that automates the extraction of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from whole blood. The filter-free technology is based on microfluidic chips with a series of connected boxes linked by narrow channels. As blood is carefully pushed through the system, l (Read more...)
New Technique for Cheaper, More Efficient Single Cell Sequencing
Single-cell sequencing has shown a lot of promise in identifying genetic differences between cells in a given tissue sample. It is particularly useful for understanding heterogeneity and evolution in resected tumors, and is increasingly used for improving precision medicine approaches. Unfortunately, conventional methods are cost-prohibitive, thus (Read more...)
Individual Control of Magnetic Micromachines Within The Body
Magnetic micromachines can be delivered into the body and then controlled externally using a magnetic field. Such micromachines could be used to deliver a therapeutic agent to a specific location in a minimally invasive manner or control adaptive implants. However, in many cases multiple micromachines may be required. For example, a ‘swarm&rs (Read more...)
DNA Computer Can Sense Multiple Antibody Inputs, With Potential for Smart Drug Delivery
Researchers at the University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands have developed a DNA computer that can respond to the presence of specific antibodies and make calculations, with the potential for intelligent drug delivery in the future. DNA computing involves using DNA molecules and other molecular biological components as molecular circuitry, instea (Read more...)
QuiO and MedCrypt Partner to Add Data Security Sophistication to Smartinjector Devices
QuiO’s Smartinjector platform, as covered previously on Medgadget, is poised to become the first set of cloud-connected injectable therapy delivery devices available for in-home use. Following their recognition at January’s Accenture Startup Health Festival as the winner of the HealthTech Innovation Challenge, the QuiO team has see (Read more...)
Magnet-Powered Implant Releases Drugs in Controlled Fashion
Researchers at the University of British Columbia have developed an implantable device designed to release a drug when triggered by an external magnet. The amount of the drug that’s the implant ejects into the body can be controlled by using different strength magnets. Such technology may be of particular use in treating localized conditions (Read more...)
PerkinElmer’s New Vectra Polaris Automated Quantitative Pathology System for Studying Cancer Immunotherapies
PerkinElmer is releasing a new automated quantitative pathology system, the Vectra Polaris. It was developed to help study how cancer immunotherapies are affecting their targets and nearby tissues. The machine is able to detect multiple immunohistochemical stains simultaneously thanks to multispectral imaging using seven colors, allowing for m (Read more...)
Device Trains Immune Cells to Attack Cancer, Chronic Infections
Our immune systems have the capacity to fight many of what today are considered chronic conditions. Yet, unless there’s an appropriate teaching exercise to train immunity toward a specific disease, cancers and other deadly maladies continue spreading unimpeded. There have been serious attempts at developing immunotherapy techniques that condi (Read more...)