As we develop a wide array of new implantable, injectable, and swallowable medical devices, the need to accurately track their location within the body becomes ever more critical. Currently, ultrasound, electromagnetism, and other methods are employed to track objects introduced into the body, but these modalities suffer from a number of imperfecti (Read more...)
Tag: Radiology
ClaroNav’s NaviENT FDA Cleared to Guide Endoscopic Sinus Surgery and Skull Base Surgery
ClaroNav, a company headquartered in Toronto, Canada, won FDA clearance for its NaviENT system that gives otolaryngologists information about the location of the tip of an instrument introduced during functional endoscopic sinus and skull base surgeries. During such surgeries, which are performed through the nose, the NaviENT shows the instrument t (Read more...)
GE Clears First Mammography System That Lets Patients Control Breast Compression
GE Healthcare won FDA clearance for the first mammography system, the Senographe Pristina Dueta, that lets women undergoing an exam to control how much the device compresses the breasts. As the woman is prepared for the exam, she is handed a small remote control that has a plus and minus buttons on it. The breast […]
Hologic’s Brevera Breast Biopsy with Built-in Imaging Now Available in U.S.
Hologic is releasing in the U.S. its Brevera breast biopsy system that works to improve the accuracy of biopsies while reducing procedural time. It features so-called Cor-Lumina imaging technology that feeds slices taken by a slicer at the tip of the biopsy needle directly into a multi-section cartridge. After excising each slice, the phy (Read more...)
MRI Inside Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: Interview with Uri Rapoport, CEO of Aspect Imaging
The smallest patients may require numerous imaging scans, including MRIs of the brain, in order to receive proper care so they can graduate from the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). MRI machines are usually situated far away from the NICU, requiring moving fragile dependent patients sometimes across the entire hospital and up and down mult (Read more...)
CORolla, a New Device to Treat Diastolic Heart Failure
At the Rambam Health Care Campus in Israel, a new device has just been implanted for the first time in a patient with diastolic heart failure. The CORolla device from CorAssist Cardiovascular, a company based in Haifa, Israel, is designed to help the left ventricle open up to a greater volume during the diastolic filling […]
(Read more...)Photoacoustics Measures Oxygenation of Tumors to Help Choose Treatment
Different tumors respond differently to radiation and chemotherapy. There’s a lot of evidence that solid tumors that are poorly oxygenated don’t respond well to these therapies. So having a way to assess tumors for tissue oxygenation can help mitigate and avoid therapies that are dangerous to the rest of the body. At University of Cambr (Read more...)
New Study Shows MR-HIFU Effective for Treating Bone Tumors in Children
Nine children were successfully treated for osteoid osteoma, a benign bone tumor, by doctors from Children’s National Health System in Washington, DC. The completion of the clinical trial marks a triumph for the new, noninvasive treatment method called magnetic resonance-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound (MR-HIFU). This incisionless su (Read more...)
EU Gives First Approval for Ultra-High-Field MRI Scanner, The Siemens Magnetom Terra
Siemens Healthineers just won the first European regulatory approval for an ultra-high-field MRI scanner to be used in clinical practice. The Magnetom Terra sports a magnetic field strength of 7 Tesla, which is considerably more powerful than 3 Tesla, the current high-end standard. MRIs of such strength have been used in research hospitals for year (Read more...)
Software Predicts Dementia from Amyloid PET Scans
Scientists at McGill University in Canada created a piece of software that can analyze images taken during an amyloid PET scan and provide an estimate of the chances of patients developing dementia. Alzheimer’s is associated with the buildup of amyloid plaques within the brain, but interpreting their location and concentrations into clinicall (Read more...)
Medtronic’s Attain Stability Quad MRI SureScan Cardiac Lead Cleared in Europe
Medtronic won CE Mark approval to introduce its Attain Stability Quad MRI SureScan left heart lead in Europe. The device works with the company’s quadripolar cardiac resynchronization therapy-defibrillators (CRT-D) and CRT-pacemakers (CRT-P) and is not only a conduit for electric current, but also a tool for the electricity to better target c (Read more...)
GE’s SIGNA Premier 3.0 Tesla MRI Built with Input from NFL Cleared by FDA
GE Healthcare won FDA 510(k) clearance to introduce its SIGNA Premier 3.0 Tesla MRI scanner and the system is already being made available to hospitals across the U.S. The device features a 70 centimeter-wide patient bore which is shorter in length compared to similar systems, a high-homogeneity magnet, digital RF transmit and receive components, i (Read more...)
Medtronic CoreValve Evolut PRO TAVR Valve Cleared in Europe
Medtronic won the European CE Mark and is introducing its CoreValve Evolut PRO transcatheter aortic valve in Europe for patients with severe aortic stenosis who are considered at intermediate, high, or extreme risk of not doing well from an open heart surgery. The Evolut PRO features an external porcine pericardial tissue wrap that helps (Read more...)
Stellarex Drug-Coated Balloon for PAD Approved by FDA
Spectranetics, based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, won FDA approval to bring to the U.S. market its Stellarex drug-coated balloon catheter. The device is designed and indicated for helping to restore and keep open the lumen of superficial femoral and popliteal arteries in patients with peripheral artery disease. The device features the compan (Read more...)
Deep Learning Algorithm Diagnoses Schizophrenia from fMRI Scans
A scientific collaboration between researchers at IBM and the University of Alberta in Canada has come up with a software tool that analyzes functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans of patient brains and with 74% accuracy diagnoses schizophrenia. Moreover, the software’s algorithms were also able to reasonably estimate how bad (Read more...)
Embrace Neonatal MRI System Cleared to Stay Inside Neonatal ICUs
The FDA has just cleared Aspect Imaging‘s Embrace Neonatal MRI System, the first dedicated neonatal MRI system to receive a regulatory green light in the U.S. It’s intended to be used to image the head and brain, and to remain inside of neonatal intensive care units (NICU). Currently, these fragile little patients have to be […]
New MRI Probe Highlights Fibrogenesis to Help Track Scar Formation Noninvasively
Tissue injuries often result in fibrogenesis, a process involving the development of an extracellular matrix that results in scars. While it can be viewed on the exterior of the body, currently there are no noninvasive methods to track the progress of fibrogenesis within the body’s interior. A team of researchers at Harvard Medical Schoo (Read more...)
Stryker’s MultiGen 2RF Generator for Facet Joint Ablations Cleared by FDA
Stryker, a company best known for orthopedic devices, won FDA clearance to introduce its MultiGen 2 RF Generator in the U.S. The device is used to treat pain deriving from facet joints in the spine by delivering radiofrequency energy that ablates targeted tissues. Compared to the previous version of the device, Stryker claims that the MultiGen (Read more...)
Stryker’s MultiGen 2RF Generator for Facet Joint Ablations Cleared by FDA
Stryker, a company best known for orthopedic devices, won FDA clearance to introduce its MultiGen 2 RF Generator in the U.S. The device is used to treat pain deriving from facet joints in the spine by delivering radiofrequency energy that ablates targeted tissues. Compared to the previous version of the device, Stryker claims that the MultiGen (Read more...)
New Device Makes Possible Simultaneous MRI and EEG Recordings
At the recent International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine Annual Meeting, researchers from Purdue University presented a new technology capable of recording electroencephalography (EEG) signals from the brain while a patient is inside an MRI machine. This may cause a revolution for the study of the brain, as functional MRI (f (Read more...)