A new AI tool creates super-resolution images showing the inner structures of bones in great detail. This can be used to better determine risk for fracture in elderly patients with osteoporosis.
Researchers are proposing a new device that uses blood to generate electricity and measure its conductivity, opening doors to medical care in any location.
An ageing population and modern lifestyle conditions have greatly increased the case numbers for hip arthroplasty. To prevent complications, it is important for orthopaedic surgeons to identify high-risk patients and take proper precautions. At the Heraeus symposium at DKOU, two experts explored the special measures that should be taken to ensure better outcomes for elderly and frail patients.
Bone fractures caused by osteoporosis are a common major global health risk. The International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) reports that one in three women over the age of 50 will sustain a potentially life-threatening fragility fracture in their remaining lifetimes. Early diagnosis and proactive treatment to keep bones healthy, including prescription medication and lifestyle changes, has the…
Radiology practitioners have highlighted the benefits of cone beam CT in delivering high resolution at a low dose. Delegates at ECR 2023 in Vienna heard how cone beam CT (CBCT) could replace multidetector CT (MDCT) in some areas and is already showing cost-effectiveness benefits.
French radiologists received prizes for the best interventional radiology toolkit for use in space travel at the JFR 2022, the annual meeting of the French Society of Radiology (SFR).
Arthroplasty for femoral neck fractures has seen enormous progress in recent years, but complications due to infections are still a major problem. With good preparation and the right technique, however, orthopaedic surgeons can take away much of the horror of this scenario.
A more accurate approach to predicting fractures due to osteoporosis could help protect patients, particularly people with multiple health conditions, according to new research.
To put a spotlight on the growing issue of osteoporosis in Europe, a new interactive online map presents key data from each of the EU member states, Switzerland and the UK.
A new device for diagnosing bone fragility invented by the University Hospitals of Geneva (HUG) and the University of Geneva (UNIGE) has been approved for marketing in the European Economic Area and Switzerland. The device is based on a new approach to assessing bone quality via blood sampling.
Arthroplasty treatment of fragile patients is a major challenge faced by orthopaedic surgeons. The patients, often geriatric, come with a variety of risk factors and comorbidities that can negatively impact the success of an arthroplasty procedure.
Clinical laboratories need to be proactive to attract transgender patients for testing and to ensure that they are comfortable with the services provided. This issue is of great importance to the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC), which conducted a scientific session on transgender health at its recent annual meeting in Chicago.
Dark-field radiography uses a part of X-rays that has hardly been considered so far to expand the spectrum of diagnostic imaging. At the ECR Overture, Theresa Urban presented the new method.
When it comes to imaging stable cardiac chest pain, which modality should be used as the first-line test to investigate coronary artery disease: CT or MRI? Radiologists discussed the strengths and limitations of the two approaches in a lively Pros and Cons session at ECR Overture.
A new kind of bone implant reduces the chance of infection, and therefore significantly decreases implant failure rates.
Researchers have developed an ultra-thin wireless device, called osseosurface electronic, that grows to the surface of bone and could someday help physicians monitor bone health and healing over long periods.
Researchers from the University of Johannesburg find that shining a near-infrared laser on adult stem cells derived from human body fat, makes the stem cells replicate 54% faster.
The length of the female reproductive period (the time from the onset of menses to the final menstrual period) has important health implications. A new study compared the length of reproductive periods for women with type 1 diabetes with women without diabetes to confirm the effect diabetes has on the female reproductive system. Study results are published online in Menopause, the journal of The…
The professional perception of vitamin D as a medicine, rather than as a key nutrient, is constraining practice and jeopardising the health of elderly care home residents in England, conclude researchers in the journal BMJ Nutrition Prevention & Health. At a time when the vulnerability of elderly care home residents is under the spotlight because of the impact of COVID-19, an urgent review is…
Value-based healthcare is gaining momentum and radiologists must increasingly show their contribution in improving patient care. Artificial intelligence (AI) can help them to do so and brings a series of new opportunities, according to Charles E Kahn, Professor and Vice Chairman of Radiology at the University of Pennsylvania, speaking at a meeting in Madrid in January. AI can do a lot to improve…
A bioactive polymer-ceramic composite for fixing implants and restoring bone defects in the skull was developed by an international group of materials scientists from the Russian National University of Science and Technology (NUST) MISIS Center for Composite Materials. An innovative composition of the material based on eggshell-derived bioceramic provides increased strength and biointegration of…
During its latest keynote presentation, tech giant Apple announced cooperations for health studies. The latest model of their smartwatches are to be key in their execution. Apple announced the three medical studies in partnership with leading US academic and research institutions.
In the most comprehensive study of its kind, researchers from the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Surrey investigated if protein intake can impact bone health of adults and children. Examining 127 previous studies published over a 40 year period, which scrutinised the link between protein and bone density, bone mineral content and relative risk of osteoporotic fractures,…
Hip and knee joint surgeries are among the most common procedures in orthopaedics and trauma surgery and complications can occur. Rare, but serious, among these is periprosthetic joint infection (PJI), which causes high costs in healthcare and stress for patients. PJI is caused by microorganisms that form a biofilm on the surface of the implant and, in this sessile state, they are difficult to…
The Danes have shown for some time how e-health can work successfully on a national level. The health portal sundhed.dk (= health), initiated in 2001 and launched in 2003, is part of the public healthcare system. As of January 2018, the Danish national strategy describes sundhed.dk as a national access point for personal health-related data for hospitals, general practitioners and communities,…
In recent years, clinicians have increasingly focused on vitamin D deficiency. Studies show that previous reference values – particularly for Vitamin D3 – were most probably set too high. Liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry (LC-MS) can help achieve more precise measurements of vitamin D levels than previously established immunoassay procedures, explains Dr Torsten Binscheck-Domass,…
Scientists have developed a new bone engineering technique called Segmental Additive Tissue Engineering (SATE). The technique allows researchers to combine segments of bone engineered from stem cells to create large scale, personalized grafts that will enhance treatment for those suffering from bone disease or injury through regenerative medicine.
Weak, easily broken bones are an epidemic in the United States. They’re often tied to osteoporosis, a disease that causes bones to degenerate over time. This makes them less flexible, more brittle, and easier to break. According to the International Osteoporosis Foundation, more than 44 million Americans aged 50 and older either have or face the threat of developing osteoporosis due to low bone…
Even 20 years after a diagnosis, women with a type of breast cancer fueled by estrogen still face a substantial risk of cancer returning or spreading, according to a new analysis from an international team of investigators published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Standard treatment for estrogen receptor-positive, or ER-positive, breast cancer includes five years of the endocrine-based…
Carestream Health is demonstrating advanced imaging analytics software tools designed to enhance value in the delivery of medical care as part of its Clinical Collaboration Platform at the SIIM Machine Learning Showcase being held Sept 26-27 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md.
Scientists are honing in on a potential treatment for osteoporosis, after performing the largest ever genetic study of the common age-related bone-thinning disease.
Language recognition on the smartphone, spam filters in the e-mail programme, personalised product recommendations by Amazon or Netflix – all share one feature: they are based on an algorithm that recognises patterns in a set of data. This artificial generation of knowledge is called machine learning.
Mathematical model shows injections of peptide could raise density of bones badly degraded by osteoporosis back to healthy levels.
Coroners in England and Wales don’t seem able to agree on what caused a person’s death or whether the death merits an inquest or not - despite being faced with identical case information - reveals a small study published online in the Journal of Clinical Pathology.
‘Today Vienna is one of the top addresses with regard to breast cancer research,’ Professor Michael Gnant proudly reports – and he certainly knows what he is talking about.
Starting immediately, Sectra and private care provider Unilabs will offer preventive bone health testing for individuals with risk factors for osteoporosis, thereby enabling measures to be taken to reduce the risk of fractures. The analysis technology to be used by Unilabs will be provided by Sectra. One in two women in Sweden will suffer from a fracture due to osteoporosis, making osteoporosis…
People often talk about how important it is to stay in shape, something humans usually can accomplish with exercise and a healthy diet, and other habits. But chances are, few of us ever think about the shape of our individual cells.
Looking at measurements of the vertebrae – the series of small bones that make up the spinal column – in newborn children, investigators at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles found that differences between the sexes are present at birth. Results of the study in the August issue of the Journal of Pediatrics, suggest that this difference is evolutionary, allowing the female spine to adapt to the…
Autografts, the gold standard of bone grafts, have several limitations. As a result, new orthobiologics products are being developed for the benefit of patients as well as surgeons. Innovations in biomaterials and graft design have enabled these advanced products that mimic the natural human bone and speed up bone repair and regeneration.
“I am very concerned about the impact that Angelina Jolie has on the media,” Walter Rocca, professor of epidemiology and neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, stated. He wasn’t hinting to Jolie’s acting choices or waifish silhouette, but to the confusion surrounding her decision to remove her ovaries to prevent ovarian cancer. By Mélisande Rouger
Women over the age of 50 are not only at higher risk of developing breast cancer but also osteoporosis. Would it not be practical to use the same method to detect both diseases early on? Definitely, decided Sectra, the Swedish company specialising in PACS and mammography systems.
The insight that psychological, social and environmental conditions affect a person’s health is insufficiently considered in medical training and in the every-day diagnosis and treatment of patients.
More than half of Germany’s population aged between 18 and 74 years cannot show off a gapless set of teeth, and that’s similar in France and worse only in Poland, according to a 2012 study, which also investigated oral hygiene.
DMS (Diagnostic Medical Systems) is thrilled to unveil, for the occasion of the ECR 2013, the newest breakthrough in bone health management: 3D-DXA.
At ECR 2012, Sectra will highlight the latest development within its product suites with the main focus on how radiology can increase their service to referring physicians thereby becoming number one for their customers in increasingly competitive and challenging environment.
New research by Johns Hopkins scientists suggests that vitamin D, long known to be important for bone health and in recent years also for heart protection, may stop conferring cardiovascular benefits and could actually cause harm as levels in the blood rise above the low end of what is considered normal.
More than 30 clinicians, researchers and industry partners (including Siemens, Aesculap and SurgiTAIX, an RWTH spin-off) are working on OrthoMIT, Germany’s largest collaborative orthopaedic research project that aims to develop future strategies for knees, hip and spinal surgery. Anja Behringer reports
Sectra has completed a mammography-modality deal with Royal Philips Electronics. Philips will pay EUR 57.5 million in a cash-on-cash and debt-free basis and take over the acquired modality operation today, September 1, 2011.
Researchers from London's Kingston University have developed a new highly-accurate blood test which can detect how much a patient's diet could be responsible for a lack of the so-called "sunshine vitamin". Vitamin D deficiencies can weaken the immune system and increase the risk of cancer and osteoporosis.
Adaptability and scalability were the buzz words at the Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics booth at this year’s IFCC-Worldlab and EuroMedLab congress. With the ongoing generation of their highperformance automation systems as an example, the company offers a multi-discipline architecture that enables a lab team to build an automation solution following their individual demands.
Norwegian studies indicate that people with osteoporosis have a greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease, and vice versa. Now researchers believe they have found a biological system that may influence both disease processes.
2010 workshop in Aachen, Germany, in March, were welcomed by Professor Thomas M Deserno, head of the Medical Informatics Department at RWTH Aachen University and organiser of what turned out to be an ‘outstanding’ scientific programme.
One of the key topics at the EFORT Congress, held recently in Vienna, was on opportunities offered by computer-aided surgery (CAS) to achieve better results for many orthopaedic interventions. Within the next decade CAS will lead to the routine use of minimally invasive surgery (MIS) for knee prosthetics, hip replacement and osteotomy.
7-11 June Innsbruck, Austria
When from 19 to 22 November the world's largest medical fair takes place in Dusseldorf, the entire city is in a kind of emergency state: hotels are bustin' out of their seams, traffic periodically comes to a standstill and at night exhibitors and visitors alike crowd the narrow streets of the Altstadt and the fancy hotel bars and enjoy whatever entertainment North Rhine-Westphalia's capital has…
Led by Professor John Kanis, the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Metabolic Bone Diseases, at Sheffield University Medical School, UK, developed FRAX. This algorithm is based on individual patient models that integrate the risks associated with clinical risk factors as well as bone mineral density (BMD) at the femoral neck to calculate a patient's 10-year fracture risk.
Drug access by older citizens varies widely across 25 EU member countries, according to a new study by IMS Health. Per capita usage of drugs to treat Alzheimer's disease in the five EU countries where utilization was highest was 20 times greater than in the five lowest-use countries.
British researchers found that the NHS and private healthcare are not providing good enough basic care to a large portion of the population in England. Particulary older and frailer people are suffering from lack of care.
Bayer Schering AG, Germany, acquires the preclinical anti-cancer program from Swiss pharma company Nycomed. Two potential drug candidates are expanding the German oncology pipeline.
As rocks keep the secrets of the earth, bones might keep those of the body. A new study that will be publish in the September 1, 2008 issue of CANCER suggests, that factors responsible for higher bone mineral density might also lead to higher risk of breast cancer.
The heel-bone quantitative ultrasound (QUS) is a simple diagnostic test that detects immediately if a patient has a risk factor for osteoporosis. The analysis of bone density allows a better selection of high-risk and low-risk patients for further testing. The treatment was applied in a new multicenter study initiated in Switzerland.
Although incremental improvements in cancer care were unveiled at the 44th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology held in Chicago, USA, — the world's largest gathering of cancer specialists, our correspondent Ian Mason writes that, even as new study results were being reported, their cost implications for stretched healthcare budgets were questioned.
The Uliazpi Foundation in Spain, which studies and cares for severely mentally retarded patients, carried out an interesting study to identify bone mineral density values in a group of its patients, compare these with the general population and investigate the possible influence on these values on certain clinical variables and therapeutic regimens.
An innovative method to produce dark-field X-ray images was recently presented by researchers from the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) and the EPFL in Switzerland. Dark-field images offer more details than ordinary X-ray radiographs, allowing to diagnose early stage breast cancer, osteoporosis or Alzheimer's disease.
According to a recently published study in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, a vertebral fracture assessment (VFA) examination can be used to measure abdominal aortic calcification (AAC). The level of AAC can predict the likelihood of myocardial infarction as well as stroke among elderly women, independent of other clinical risk factors.
“We have a broad set of products and services that enable healthcare providers to improve the quality and cost of patient care,” said Carestream Health's Chief Executive Officer Kevin J. Hobert with reference to Carestream´s RSNA highlights. “We have digital technology and consulting services that few companies can match, and our integrated imaging and IT solutions are helping healthcare…
Near-infrared fluorescence mammography works with rays of near-infrared (NIR) light instead of X-rays. Although this is thought to be a very promising technique, there have been no effective contrast agents.
Researchers from the School of Dentistry at the University of Manchester developed a technique to identify osteoporosis from ordinary dental x-rays. The software-based method has the potential to improve the early diagnoses of osteoporosis on a wide-scale screening level.
The Swiss company Novartis recently received the FDA approval for the U.S. market for their new osteoporosis drug “Reclast”, a therapy that is only given once a year via a 15-minute infusion. The new treatment option is especially designed for women who suffer from post-menopausal osteoporosis.
Like any other congress, the 88th German Radiology Congress will present the latest research, workshops and refresher courses.
Simple clinical measurements raise hope of targeted treatments for those at highest risk. The future risk of osteoporotic fracture can be predicted with 75% accuracy using a new mathematical formula, according to research published in the October issue of Radiology (RSNA.org).
USA - The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently cleared the incorporation of Hip Structure Analysis (HSA) software in Hologic dual-energy X-ray (DXA) bone densitometers.
UK - Around 10 million people suffer from musculoskeletal ailments in England alone.
Inverness Medical Innovations develops and manufactures rapid diagnostic products for use in preventive as well as interventional therapies.
Cerament Spine Support, designed by the medical technology company BoneSupport to treat osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures, has achieved full patient enrolment in an open, multi-centre study which will investigate the product's efficacy, safety, and the beneficial quality of life outcome for the patients. The study, being carried out at six centres in Germany, involves 40 patients aged…
USA - Radiologists at Newton-Wellesley Hospital in Newton, Massachusetts have released findings from a breast cancer research study designed to evaluate the use of software from Advanced Image Enhancement, Inc (AIE) for examining regions of interest (ROI) with Hologic's Lorad Selenia digital mammography system.