Researchers at the University of California San Diego have developed a magnetic tracking system for surgical robots to operate with dexterity within the body. The technology does not require patient or clinician exposure to radiation, and is much less expensive that pre-existing monitoring techniques. A magnet is embedded in the tip of the robot an (Read more...)
Tag: Plastic Surgery
Personalized Blood Flow Modeling Benefits from Virtual Reality Interface
Researchers at Duke University have developed a fluid dynamics simulator that can model blood flow within the body, including the motion of individual blood cells. The researchers hope that the system could eventually be used by clinicians to model blood flow for individual patients and help with treatment decisions, such as stent placement. By tes (Read more...)
Electric Stimulation Gives Robot-Assistive Surgery a Sense of Touch
A team of researchers at Texas A&M have performed studies evaluating how electrical stimulation can help users control robots, for example helping surgeons steady their movements during robot-assisted procedures. They found, in 11 subjects, that small electrical stimulations to the fingertips can help users control the pinching of a hardwood bl (Read more...)
SX-One MicroKnife Makes Carpal Tunnel Release a Minimally Invasive Procedure: Interview with CEO Dr. Darryl Barnes
Carpal tunnel syndrome is a fairly common diagnosis in the United States, affecting approximately three to six percent of adults. Symptoms include pain, numbness, and tingling along the thumb, index, and middle fingers. For severe or refractory cases, the best treatment is surgery. However, because open surgery requires anesthesia and many weeks of (Read more...)
New Non-Toxic, Printable Biomedical Material Developed
Synthetic dry elastomers are polymeric materials that feature cross-linked networks that form into random and unordered shapes and textures. These materials have a host of properties that are applicable in biomedicine, but the randomness of their internal structures at different scales makes it difficult to actually use these elastomers. Now, resea (Read more...)
Universal Biomedical 3D Printing Ink Developed
3D printing is already used in medicine in many applications, but there’s still a great deal that custom-built implants could offer to patients. Bioinks, the materials from which bespoke implants can printed, may be the most important focus of research aimed at expanding the use of additive manufacturing, another term for 3D printing, in medi (Read more...)
Device Prints Scaffolds Inside Wounds to Replace Lost Tissue
3D printing of artificial scaffolds intended to replace injured tissues has become a ballyhooed technology that’s yet to prove itself in clinical practice. One issue that complicates things is that the scaffolds have to match the volume that they’ll be replacing, in both shape and the direction in which cells will have to grow. To [&hel (Read more...)
Microsure MUSA Robot Used for First Time on Real Patients
In a world first, clinicians at Maastricht University have used a robot to perform “supermicrosurgeries”, which involved operating on vessels as small as 0.3 mm in diameter. The procedures were conducted on women with lymphedema, a condition that arose as a result of breast cancer, whose lymphatic vessels were connected to veins to prov (Read more...)
Textiles from Human Cells for Replacement Vessels, Tissues, Organs
Scientists at University of Bordeaux/French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) have developed a completely new biological material, made using human fibroblast cells, that can be turned into sutures, vascular grafts, and many other medical devices and tissue replacements. They showed that their Cell-Assembled extracellular M (Read more...)
New Customizable Bio-Ink for Printing Organs, Tissues
3D printing of tissues and organs requires a bio-ink that can host the living cells that are required for every unique application. A viable construct requires an extracellular matrix that will have the right mechanical and biochemical properties for the intended cells. Researchers at Rutgers University believe they’re on track to being able (Read more...)
Handheld 3D Bioink Printer for Wound Healing
Researchers at the University of Toronto have developed a handheld 3D printer that can deposit a stem cell-loaded bioink onto wounds, such as burns, to promote tissue healing. The device acts like a paint roller, and a clinician could use it to deposit the biomaterial in even stripes on a wound surface. A recent study […]
Easy-to-Remove Superhydrophobic Bandage Speeds Clotting of Wounds
Researchers at ETH Zurich and National University of Singapore have developed a new type of bandage that does not stick to the wound while helping blood to clot beneath it. This is the first time scientists have combined both properties in one material and the capability allows the bandage to promote healing and be easily […]
Microsure, a Dutch Microsurgery Robotics Firm, at CES 2020
Among the myriad of consumer gadgets at CES 2020, we ran into a Dutch maker of microsurgery robotic equipment. Microsure makes the MUSA robot, which already has the CE Mark in Europe. Here’s a company rep giving us an introduction:
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MolecuLight FDA Cleared to Detect Bacteria Infected Wounds
Knowing whether a wound is infected by a bacterial colony is important for monitoring patients and deciding the course of treatment. Currently, the standard of care is simply to assess the clinical signs and symptoms (CSS) related to the wound in question, but bacterial infections of wounds are typically not obvious until they’re at an [&hell (Read more...)
Electrospinning Drug Delivery Bandages Directly Onto Wounds
Electrospinning is a maturing manufacturing technology that is already being used in medicine to produce unusual materials with novel properties. It involves melting a polymer and extruding it through a narrow nozzle, while an electric field is used to pull and spin the polymer into a very fine mesh. When a biocompatible polymer is used, […]
(Read more...)Bioinspired Double-Sided Surgical Tape Rapidly Seals Tissues Together
Researchers at MIT have developed an adhesive tape that can quickly seal wounds and bind tissues together, potentially even binding implantable medical devices to a target site. The researchers hope that the tape could eventually replace surgical sutures, which have a variety of limitations. “There are over 230 million major surgeries all aro (Read more...)
Scientists 3D Print Vascularized Artificial Skin
Researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a new method to 3D print living skin with built-in blood vessels. This living skin construct is cultured in vitro and develops into an interconnected microvascular network underneath a layered barrier of skin cells. in tests on mice, the grafts connect with the animals’ vascular (Read more...)
Scientists 3D Print Vascularized Artificial Skin
Researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a new method to 3D print living skin with built-in blood vessels. This living skin construct is cultured in vitro and develops into an interconnected microvascular network underneath a layered barrier of skin cells. in tests on mice, the grafts connect with the animals’ vascular (Read more...)
Bruin Biometrics Is on a Mission to End Pressure Ulcers: Interview with CEO Martin Burns
Earlier this year, Medgadget reported on the FDA’s clearance of the SEM Scanner, a device created by Los Angeles-based Bruin Biometrics (BBI). The SEM Scanner is a wireless, handheld device that detects changes in sub-epidermal moisture as an indicator of risk for developing a pressure ulcer. Moisture can indicate the presence of localized ed (Read more...)
Nanomesh Loaded with Antibiotics for Targeted Wound and Infection Treatment
Antibiotics are usually only needed at particular sites, where infection is likely to start. Yet, they’re delivered throughout the entire body via pills and injections. This results in poor localized effectiveness, unnecessary effects on the rest of the body, and sometimes leads to the development of resistance. Researchers at Flinders Univer (Read more...)