Siemens Healthineers won clearance from the FDA for its Mobilett Elara Max X-ray system. The mobile device can be wheeled from room to room while the cables are safely hidden inside and the antimicrobial coating prevents the transfer of pathogens. The firm touts the system’s IT security features that help to maintain patient privacy whil (Read more...)
Tag: surgery
Microfluidic Device Measures Platelet Health in Minutes
Platelets are an important component of blood’s clotting mechanism. When platelets are not aggregating as well as they should, there might be a need for a platelet transfusion during clinical care. Platelet functionality is hard to determine quickly with current methods, but researchers at the University of Washington have developed a microfl (Read more...)
FundamentalVR Integrates HaptX Gloves Into Virtual Reality Surgical Trainer
FundamentalVR, a company that makes virtual reality training tools for medical education, has integrated the HaptX Gloves into its Fundamental Surgery platform. Fundamental surgery can be used on different computers and with a variety of virtual reality headsets and haptic tools. Most systems that can provide a sense of touch have relied on pointer (Read more...)
da Vinci Surgical Robot Given Sense of Touch to Prevent Injury
Intuitive Surgical effectively brought robotics into the operating room with its da Vinci systems. The company now dominates this market and its robots are now used all over the world to conduct all kinds of minimally invasive surgeries. While the da Vincis give surgeons incredible precision when working with tissues deep inside the body, (Read more...)
Diagnosing Esophageal Cancer More Accurately: Interview with Mark Rutenberg, CEO of CDx Diagnostics
Cancer of the esophagus is often related to chronic heartburn, something patients too often end up ignoring. The onset of the potentially deadly disease can be detected, though, given good enough imaging and regular screenings. The imaging component, that we’re particularly interested in, relies on physicians to take biopsies of random bits o (Read more...)
Scientists Make MRI Practical for Breast Cancer Screening
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Handheld Skin Bioprinter Heals Deep Open Wounds With Patient’s Own Cells
The human organism has a number of physiologic processes that work together to heal skin wounds. Sometimes wounds are so large and difficult that these healing mechanisms simply can’t access damaged tissues. Researchers at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in North Carolina are now reporting the development of a bioprinter (Read more...)
Resistance-Sensing Needle Helps Improve Injection Accuracy
While most medical tools have seen incredible advances over the past century, the syringe has remained relatively unchanged despite room for improvement. Without the use of live imaging or sensing systems, which require additional time and resources, nurses and physicians must rely on blind insertion techniques using superficial anatomical landmark (Read more...)
Scientists Explain Why Electric Bandages Work
Electrical bandages, ones that allow electric current to make contact with the wound, have been known for a while to be very effective at speeding up healing. Over the past decade there’s been a great deal of technological development in this field, but the mechanism behind why these “electroceuticals” really work has been poorly (Read more...)
Signal Catheter Prevents Injury from Premature Balloon Inflation
Safe Medical Design, a company based in San Francisco, CA, won FDA clearance for its Signal Catheter device. The indwelling foley urinary catheter is designed to help prevent discomfort and injury that can occur if it’s incorrectly placed, an all-too-common occurrence. Indwelling urinary catheters typically have a balloon at the tip that is i (Read more...)
Mauna Kea’s Cellvizio AQ-Flex 19 Miniprobe FDA Cleared for Analyzing Lung Nodules
Mauna Kea Technologies, based in Paris, France, won clearance from the FDA for its Cellvizio needle-based AQ-Flex 19 confocal miniprobe for use in sampling and imaging of peripheral lung nodules. The product allows physicians to image lung nodules directly through existing bronchoscopes and accompanying accessories. Additionally, in some marke (Read more...)
Philips Envisions Use of Augmented Reality in Operating Room (Video)
The Microsoft HoloLens is an impressive augmented reality (AR) system that lets the user overlay graphics over the visual scene in front. Philips is partnering with Microsoft to bring this technology to the operating room, and it has released a “concept” that foreshadows how AR can be used for image-guided minimally invasive therapies. (Read more...)
Nanoparticles Highlight Organ Transplant Rejection Through Fluorescent Urine
Researchers at Georgia Tech have developed a sophisticated nanoparticle that can alert clinicians to the early stages of transplanted organ immune rejection through a simple urine test. The nanoparticles can accumulate in transplanted organs and detect immune rejection, whereupon they release molecules that turn the urine of the organ recipient flu (Read more...)
Intuitive Surgical Releases Ion Robotic Lung Biopsy System
Intuitive Surgical, the firm that makes the popular da Vinci surgical robotic systems, won FDA clearance and is releasing a robotic lung biopsy system called Ion in the United States. The catheter-based device allows precise penetration and sampling of tissues deep within the lungs. The catheter is only 3.5 mm wide and it can rotate […]
Philips Unveils New Zenition Surgical C-Arms
Philips is releasing a new mobile surgical C-arm designed to improve efficiency in the operating room. The Philips Zenition sports a tablet-like interface that runs the same Unify software across the various versions of the Zenition and is similar to what appears in some other radiological equipment from Philips, allowing operators to quickly learn (Read more...)
Surgeries Filmed for Virtual Reality Now Available on Oculus Headsets
Operating rooms are highly restricted environments that only patients and clinicians are normally allowed access to. They’re quite different than what laypeople envision, at least judging by how surgical environments are portrayed in popular culture. Moreover, the teamwork and the camaraderie during hours of professional focus, is someth (Read more...)
HemaShock Auto-Transfusion Tourniquet to Save Lives from Heart Attacks and Severe Bleeding
Patients undergoing a hemorrhagic shock or a cardiac arrest can be aided in many cases by restricting blood flow to the extremities, particularly the legs. Current methods are paintful and can be difficult to administer, while trapping lots of blood within the legs, as with conventional tourniquets. A new device from OHK Medical Devices, an [&helli (Read more...)
Digital Thermography and Machine Learning Team Up to Improve Burn Wound Care
A team at McGill University in Canada and the Universidad Autonoma de San Luis Potosi in Mexico have developed a system for analyzing thermographic scans of burn wounds to improve how they are analyzed and how patients are treated. The team used digital infrared thermography, a non-invasive imaging technique, to study wounds when they were pre (Read more...)
Crescent Vision Dual-Camera Headband for Surgeons: CES 2019
Many surgical procedures are difficult to teach in practice because few people can gather around an operating table. Particularly with highly detailed surgeries, it is difficult to work on vessels and other anatomical structures while letting others have a good view of the scene as well. Crescent Tech, a Dutch firm, is developing a special [&hellip (Read more...)
Platform Wound Dressing, a Negative Pressure Wound Therapy Device Doesn’t Need Gauze or Foam
Applied Tissue Technologies, based in Hingham, MA, won FDA clearance for its Platform Wound Dressing (PWD), the first embossed negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) device that doesn’t require using any foam or gauze. The PWD has an adhesive base and an embossed membrane that keeps the wound isolated from the outside environment. T (Read more...)