Smartphones have become surprisingly useful in medicine, but they still remain mostly as assistants to the core process of medicine. They make it easy for clinicians to communicate, absorb information, take notes, and do so many other things. They’re still rarely used for diagnostics, but that’s changing too. Healthy.io, a company out o (Read more...)
Tag: Urology
MACH 30 Ultrasound with ShearWave PLUS Elastography Cleared in U.S., Europe
SuperSonic Imagine, a French firm, has announced that its Aixplorer MACH 30 ultrasound has been cleared in the U.S. and Europe. The system works as a traditional high power ultrasound, but also features the company’s elastography technology called ShearWave PLUS that measures tissue elasticity, or stiffness, in 3D. Elastography is now co (Read more...)
HydrUStent’s Biodegradable Stents Could Improve Patient Outcomes
Stents are widely used in patient care, but a major complication is infection and, for many types of stents, the need for eventual surgical removal. HydrUStent, a startup based at the University of Minho in Portugal, hopes to improve those limitations. HydrUStent’s product is a ureteral stent made from a patented material that is antibacteria (Read more...)
First High Intensity Focused Ultrasound System for Prostate Ablation Cleared in U.S.
EDAP, based in Lyon, France, now has FDA clearance to bring to the U.S. its Focal One high intensity focused ultrasound system. It’s used to ablate prostate tissue in a non-invasive way, relying on sound waves to resonate tissue apart at the cellular level. A urologist, using the system, combines imagery from previously obtained MRI [… (Read more...)
KARL STORZ’s Blue Light Flexible Cystoscopy Coming to U.S. for Bladder Cancer Detection
KARL STORZ is releasing its PDD (photodynamic diagnostics) Blue Light Flexible Video Cystoscopy in the United States for detection of non-muscle invasive bladder cancer. The news is a result of the FDA’s regulatory green light that allows the company’s Blue Light Cystoscopy with Cysview to also be useful with the KARL&nbs (Read more...)
URO-1’s Repris System for Injecting Botox Into Bladder
URO-1, based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, got FDA approval for its Repris Bladder Injection System. The product is designed for delivering Botox injections into the bladder as a treatment option for overactive bladder. The device, which is supposed to make such procedures easier on the physicians and more comfortable on the patients, will be u (Read more...)
FujiFilm Releases New Minimally Invasive Imaging Systems in U.S.
FUJIFILM is releasing a couple surgical visualization systems that were designed to improve minimally invasive procedures. The FUJIFILM EL-580FN Ultra-Slim Video Laparoscope System uses the firm’s own Super-Honeycomb CCD sensor to produce high quality images that are sharp and reproduce colors accurately. So-called “Chip on the Tip (Read more...)
Ferromagnetic FMsealer Laparoscopic Shears for Faster Vessel Sealing with Fewer Side Effects
Domain Surgical out of Salt Lake City, UT, which is part of OmniGuide, itself based in Lexington, MA, is releasing new laparoscopic shears based on its ferromagnetic technology. The FMsealer Laparoscopic Shears, unlike bipolar electric devices, do not release electric current into the tissues when transecting and sealing. And unlike ultrasonic (Read more...)
Canon Releases Aplio i600 Ultrasound with Enhanced Ergonomics
Canon Medical is unveiling its recently FDA cleared Aplio i600 ultrasound system. It’s intended for both diagnostic and interventional procedures, featuring a bunch of tools that make setup quick and intuitive. An image-guide interface helps to move the clinician through the imaging exam. Canon touts the ergonomic design of the Aplio i600 tha (Read more...)
Philips Unveils First Live Tele-Ultrasound System
Philips, in a partnership with Innovative Imaging Technologies, a company out of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, is releasing the first telemedicine system that transmits live ultrasound images during scans performed by a paramedic or nurse to a physician’s smartphone, tablet, or computer. Audio and video are shared as well, allowing physician (Read more...)
Samsung Unveils RS85A, a New Premium General Ultrasound
Samsung received FDA clearance and is unveiling its new RS85A general purpose premium ultrasound system. It features the company’s technologies such as MV-Flow, which lets clinicians see flow through micro vascularized structures and help diagnose cancer in many cases, and S-Shearwave Imaging (shown above), a shearwave elastography technique (Read more...)
Uro-V, a Disposable Single-Use Diagnostic Cystoscope FDA Cleared
UroViu Corporation, a company based in Bellevue, Washington, won FDA clearance for its Uro-V single-use diagnostic cystoscope. The semi-flexible disposable device is intended for assessing the urethra and urinary bladder in women while reducing the chances of infection and increasing patient comfort. The system consists of a reusable handle, v (Read more...)
Lens-Free Fluorescent Microscope for Imaging Deep Inside Body
Microscopes are a ubiquitous tool in the life sciences and their applications extend into clinical practice. Doctors use them to peer into the eye, examine tissues for signs of cancer, and to help perform surgeries. But, microscopes are bulky, so it’s impossible to use them to image many of the areas deep inside the body. […]
SensOR Medical Allows Surgeons to Feel Again
It’s no secret: minimally invasive surgeries (MIS) are on the rise. The tools used during these advanced scope-based procedures provide little tactile feedback that surgeons used to experience in open surgeries. Working at a distance means it is hard to gauge the force being applied to tissues. The founders at SensOR Medical Laboratories, a m (Read more...)
GE’s New Versana Essential Budget Friendly Ultrasound
GE Healthcare is unveiling a new budget conscious ultrasound system, the Versana Essential. GE touts it as having excellent image quality for the price and sees it being used by OB-GYNs, family and general practice physicians, and by clinicians in a number of other specialties. Using it you can view the thyroid vasculature, kidney vessels, [&hellip (Read more...)
Put on Two Surgical Gloves as Fast as One With GAMMEX PI Glove-in-Glove System
Putting on two pairs of gloves is a common occurrence in medicine, particularly among surgeons that work with sharp instruments. It’s frustrating and feels like a waste of time, but that’s reality. Now there are gloves that come already doubled, while being easy to snap on. The GAMMEX PI Glove-in-Glove system from Ansell, a company [&he (Read more...)
GE’s Augmented Reality Technology for Ultrasound Training
Training clinicians to properly scan patients with ultrasound probe, particularly in countries with a poor medical education infrastructure, can be a slow process. While the cost and accessibility of ultrasound is dropping rapidly, the number of people qualified to use this equipment is not keeping up. A team at General Electric is now working on [ (Read more...)
Surgical Sealants and Beyond: Interview with Christophe Bancel, CEO and Co-Founder of Gecko Biomedical
Medgadget recently reported that Gecko Biomedical, a biomedical start-up based in Paris, France received CE mark approval for their SETALUM Surgical sealant. The bioinspired polymer sealant is cured on-demand using light and can supplement conventional sutures during vascular surgery. The material is biodegradable, bioresorbable, and biocompatible, (Read more...)
CleanCision System FDA Cleared to Retract and Protect Abdominal Surgical Wounds
Prescient Surgical, based in San Carlos, California, just won FDA marketing clearance for its CleanCision Wound Retraction and Protection System. The device, which combines a retractor with infection control mechanisms, aims to prevent surgical site infections, a common, dangerous, and costly problem. The CleanCision System protects surgical w (Read more...)
CompactCath, a Discreet, Compact, Hygienic Urinary Catheter Cleared in EU
The San Francisco Bay Area may be best known for information technology startups, but there are other small companies around that develop very different technologies. CompactCath has created a urinary catheter that solves some of the persistent issues that users of such devices have to face every day, and the company just announced that its [&helli (Read more...)