Tissue engineering is a vibrant research field poised to revolutionize how we heal organs and tissues following damage from injury and disease. One of the difficulties that scientists working with cultured cells discover is the inability to closely monitor a number of characteristics of their cellular cultures. One reason is that water and electron (Read more...)
Tag: surgery
Radiation-Free Guidance for Vascular Catheters Using Smart Fiber Optics
While modern catheters can reach into various parts of the body, navigating there remains a major challenge. Fluoroscopes that emit X-rays are used to constantly keep track of the catheter location, but they emit ionizing radiation and require a great deal of protection to be used by clinicians. Engineers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital [&h (Read more...)
Protein-Loaded Antimicrobial Hydrogel to Treat, Prevent Bone Infections
Bone infections are quite common following orthopedic surgery or as a result of injury or disease. They can be incredibly difficult to treat, and heavy duty antibiotic regimens coupled with debridement surgery is the current approach. Even after all that, inflammation is a frequent side effect. Now, researchers at Georgia Tech have created a hydrog (Read more...)
Researchers 3D Print Materials to Mimic Soft Tissues and Create Custom Braces
3D printing is already widely utilized in medicine during cardiac surgeries, to make orthopedic implants, and as guides to accurately put them in place. Typically, the devices that are printed are rigid, but the body is mostly made of soft tissues. Engineers at MIT have been working on offering clinicians a way to use additive […]
Ultra-Thin Probe Assesses Tissues Deep Within Lungs
Assessing the health of tissues deep inside the body is a major need and challenge in medicine. Imaging modalities such as MRI, CT, and ultrasound provide very little information about the composition and environment of tissues being examined. Now, researchers at the University of Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt University, and Bath University, all in the U (Read more...)
Hot Glue Gun and Custom Biocompatible Glue for Wound Closures
Soft tissue wounds and incisions are generally closed using sutures and staples, but those leave marks behind and can be very unpleasant for patients. In some cases, such as cosmetic surgery, specialty adhesives are used to fuse tissues together. However, these can be toxic and they tend to solidify into a harder form than native […]
Project Moray Developing Robotic Intracardiac Catheter for Complex Interventions
Catheter-based surgical interventions are now routine, so much so that navigating to the heart from an access site in the groin is considered ho-hum. Once there, though, getting a catheter tip to the exact spot within the heart that requires treatment can still be exceedingly difficult. Unlike the vasculature used to get there, the heart […]
(Read more...)Engineers Create Cross-Linked Hydrogels to Lure Stem Cells Into Wounds
Hydrogels have become a popular material for new treatment strategies targeting a variety of diseases. They can deliver encapsulated therapeutic molecules, degrade in the body at a predefined rate, and can be biocompatible. However, each application requires the hydrogel to have appropriate strength, consistency, and the ability to carry growth fac (Read more...)
Nexus Ultrasonic Surgical Platform from Misonix FDA Cleared
Mixonix, a Farmingdale, New York company that specializes in ultrasonic devices for surgical applications such as osteotomies and debridements, won FDA clearance for the new Nexus surgical platform. The Nexus combines the capabilities of Mixonix’s three existing products, namely BoneScalpel, SonicOne and Sonastar, into a single system that ca (Read more...)
Patches Made of Heart Tissue Going to Clinical Trials
Stem cell therapies to heal damaged hearts have proven to be lacking so far, probably because simply injecting new cells into afflicted regions isn’t enough. Researchers from Imperial College London have now created patches made of cardiac tissue to sew over damaged areas of the heart. These patches, which can beat on their own to […]
Bioabsorbable Wound Dressing with Nanoscale Chitosan to Rapidly Stop Bleeding
Chitosan is a sugar compound derived from the exoskeletons of shrimp, crab, and other shellfish. It is used extensively in medicine, including in dressings, because of its well known hemostatic properties. These properties work at the nanoscale, so delivering tiny bits of chitosan to the site of a wound can help improve how it works […]
Gold Nanoparticle-Coated Surgical Meshes for Photothermal Infection Control
Researchers at the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) in Catalonia have developed a new technique to decontaminate surgical meshes once they are implanted in the body. The technique involves gold nanoparticle-coated meshes that heat up when they are exposed to near infrared light, destroying bacterial biofilms on the mesh surface. The researcher (Read more...)
LifeFlow Next Gen for Sepsis and Shock Makes Infusions Easier and Safer
410 Medical, a Durham, North Carolina firm, is releasing a new version of its LifeFlow rapid infuser for treating patients during sepsis or shock. The LifeFlow Next Gen can safely deliver 500 ml of crystalloid fluid in less than two minutes, nearly four times faster than when using a pressure bag. Device is operated with […]
(Read more...)Haemonetics TEG 6s Hemostasis Analyzer Cleared for Trauma Testing
Haemonetics won FDA clearance for its TEG 6s Hemostasis Analyzer System to be used in adult trauma settings to evaluate the viscoelasticity of patients’ blood. The system relies on an all-in-one cartridge into which a small sample of blood is placed. The cartridge already has the necessary reagents within itself, automatically mixing them wit (Read more...)
Prevena Negative Pressure System FDA Approved for Superficial Surgical Site Infections
KCI, now a part of the Acelity Company, has announced that its PREVENA negative pressure incision management system is the first to receive FDA’s indication to help with reducing superficial surgical site infections in those at high risk of post-op infections. The approval comes under the FDA’s de novo pathway that was designed to bring (Read more...)
Prevena Negative Pressure System FDA Approved for Superficial Surgical Site Infections
KCI, now a part of the Acelity Company, has announced that its PREVENA negative pressure incision management system is the first to receive FDA’s indication to help with reducing superficial surgical site infections in those at high risk of post-op infections. The approval comes under the FDA’s de novo pathway that was designed to bring (Read more...)
World’s First Surgical Vending Machine
Xenco Medical, a company that makes disposable spinal tools and implants, is unveiling a vending machine for tracking and dispensing these devices. Clinicians have a huge touchscreen display to choose what they’d like to retrieve out of the machine. The same display can be used to get some specs on the various devices and watch […]
Bioengineered Viruses Used to Kill Antibiotic-Resistant Infection
Scientists at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute have achieved a world’s first of beating a bacterial infection using an engineered virus. This was done in a 15-year-old girl with cystic fibrosis who had a severe case of Mycobacterium. The girl received a double lung transplant, but then developed the infection that antibiotics could not kil (Read more...)
Xcision GammaPod High Precision Breast Cancer Radiotherapy Cleared in Europe
Xcision, a company out of Columbia, Maryland, won EU regulatory clearance to introduce its GammaPod stereotactic radiotherapy system. The device is used to help treat breast cancer, and the technology within it may help to make treatments faster and more accurate compared to existing radiotherapy systems. The system relies on a special breast cup, (Read more...)
Hologic Releases Trident HD Specimen Radiography System for Breast Tissue Analysis
Hologic is releasing its Trident HD specimen radiography system for use in stereotactic breast biopsies and for verifying tumor margins during breast-conserving surgeries. It has regulatory clearances in the United States and Europe, where it is now being made available. Such devices are typically used within the surgical environment to inspect exc (Read more...)