A new SPECT/CT imaging technique using lead-212 (²¹²Pb) shows promise in targeted alpha therapy (TAT) for patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.
Experts at Newcastle University have discovered artificial intelligence can be used to analyse medical imaging from CT scans, which is aimed at predicting survival in patients with laryngeal cancer.
Researchers discovered three distinct immunological endophenotypes of multiple sclerosis, defined by specific blood immune signatures. This opens new avenues for personalized treatment strategies.
Researchers are developing novel active substances designed to cut off the nutrient supply of resistant bacteria, effectively starving them to death.
Using 3D bioprinting to accurately replicate the biological environment surrounding gastric cancer cells, researchers predicted a patient’s response to anticancer drugs during the preclinical stage.
A team of Northwestern University scientists has developed the first wireless, implantable temperature sensor to detect inflammatory flareups in patients with Crohn’s disease.
Multiplex PET imaging technology could provide a ground-breaking new approach for diagnosing and treating bowel cancer patients, according to scientists in Glasgow.
Radiologists and AI don’t always work well together: New research finds that the benefits of using AI tools appear to vary, boosting performance of some clinicians, but hurting others'.
A novel AI-based, non-invasive diagnostic tool enables accurate brain tumor diagnosis, outperforming current classification methods. The tool leverages MRI information to aid clinical decision making.
Researchers work on the first prototype that applies AI to colorectal diagnosis. The prototype achieved a diagnostic acuity of 93.44% and a sensitivity of 99.7% in the detection of high-risk lesions.
Striking the balance between diagnostic efficacy and patient safety remains critical when utilising iodinated contrast media to deliver the best imaging outcomes. Currently, 300 million CT exams are conducted across the world every year, with 40% contrast-enhanced exam. While playing a crucial role in diagnosis and treatment of disease, CT expert Efthimios Agadakos believes the medical profession…
In a breakthrough for personalised oncology, scientists have developed and demonstrated a novel platform that can significantly reduce the time needed to determine the efficacy of anti-cancer drugs.
A team of researchers has discovered a new method of measuring levels of cortisol directly from a blood sample - a significant step forward in diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of diseases.
‘Next Generation Radiology: Embracing the future and redefining the field of radiology’: In the run-up to the European Congress of Radiology 2024, we spoke with ESR President Professor Carlo Catalano from Rome, Italy, about the meeting’s content and its intriguing theme.
GE HealthCare and the European Society of Radiology (ESR) renew their collaboration for the upcoming European Congress of Radiology (ECR) from February 28 to March 3 in Vienna.
Researchers have developed a 3D-bioprinted, miniaturized chip to advance the understanding of cardiovascular disease and aid in the development of new precision treatments.
Juggling the cost of quality control (QC) resources versus the risk of testing error is a balancing act no clinical laboratory manager enjoys. It is an inexact process, itself prone to error, which can impact the operations of hospital labs and independent clinical testing companies. In the current resource-constrained healthcare environment, there is pressure to improve the cost effectiveness of…
Chemotherapy can be toxic to heart cells. To help protect the hearts of cancer patients, Cedars-Sinai investigators have created a three-dimensional “heart-on-a-chip” to evaluate drug safety.
AI technology holds promise for personalised cancer therapies. However, rigid and slow approval requirements impede its introduction, say experts – and point out how this might be changed.
United Imaging Healthcare Europe, a leading company in advanced medical imaging and radiotherapy equipment, proudly announces the introduction of its first Mobile Digital PET/CT solution in Italy, now fully operational in the Piacenza province under the auspices of the Azienda Unità Sanitaria Locale Piacenza (AUSLP) hospital.
Three disease subtypes, based on causes rather than symptoms: A new classification model for Parkinson's disease aims to pave the way for better diagnostics and therapies.
A new soldering technique developed by Empa researchers is expected to prevent wound healing disorders and life-threatening complications from leaking sutures.
Certain genetic features are crucial for treatment decisions for AML leukaemia. A team from Münster shows how an AI-based method can predict these features from images of bone marrow smears.
Contraception, wound healing, arthritis treatment: Here are three recent papers published in ACS journals that could expand the beneficial uses for nanoparticles, based on results in rats.
A research team from Denmark has developed an innovative screening test. With a blood sample from the expectant mother, they can scrutinize all the genes in the fetus.
Operating a surgical robot is complicated, but now, researchers may have found a surprising way to shorten the learning process: with electricity applied to the head.
While genetic information may lead to better treatments, promises of cost savings are unfounded. Instead, a large additional bill is more likely, according to University of Copenhagen researchers.
US researchers discuss three blood-based liquid biopsies, namely circulating tumor cells, circulating tumor DNA and tumor-derived exosomes, as they relate to prostate cancer management.
Scientists map the effects of 86 immune-signaling molecules called cytokines on every major immune cell type, creating a reference for studying the inner workings of the immune system.
Researchers from the University of Birmingham have designed and developed a novel diagnostic device to detect traumatic brain injury (TBI) by shining a safe laser into the eye.
A new deep-learning approach to AMR testing has been shown to detect antimicrobial susceptibility within as little as 30 minutes - significantly faster than current gold-standard approaches.
The world's leading medical trade fair MEDICA 2023 starts on Monday in Düsseldorf with more than 5,300 exhibiting companies from almost 70 nations and the kick-off event for the accompanying 46th German Hospital Day, which will be attended by Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (via video link) and NRW Health Minister Karl-Josef Laumann. COMPAMED 2023 will take place parallel to MEDICA. As…
Ultrasound technology now plays a vital role in clinical diagnosis and management. Significant advances in point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) have made it a versatile tool for assessment, diagnosis, and follow-up across various fields. New developments continue to expand its applications, improving patient care and outcomes.
Sure, AI still has a long way go. But maybe one day in the not-so-distant future, AI will provide us with information about our current state of health, such as the number of red blood cells, cholesterol levels, fat percentage, and how many seconds last night's beer will shorten our life expectancy.
A mechanism that led some patients to experience cases of deadly clotting following some types of Covid-19 vaccination has been identified in new research.
Chemotherapy, radiotherapy or surgery – these are the three common forms of cancer therapy. Now, lymphoma specialists in Essen are investigating the possibility of a different approach.
High-BMI patients are a challenge for abdominal sonography. In a new study, researchers point out the benefits of special high-performance probes and their impact on image quality.
What role should artificial life play in medicine? Researchers from Denmark and the US explore the potential of hybrid peptide-DNA nanostructures for diagnosing and treating diseases.
Two out of the four screening tools used by emergency medical services are inadequate for recognising sepsis, according to new research presented at the EUSEM Congress.
A new type of microdevice could offer new ways to treat brain cancer. The shape and size of a grain of rice, it is implanted into a tumor to study the effects of ongoing therapies.
It had long been recognized that the brain was made up of two types of cells, neurons and glial cells. Now, neuroscientists discovered an additional type - with huge implications for brain disorders.
Researchers have developed an aero-elastic pressure sensor to provide increased precision and reliability across medical applications, such as minimally-invasive surgeries and implantable sensors.
A new analysis exploring the finances of bringing new cancer drugs to market has found that precision oncology drugs could be $1 billion cheaper to develop than non-precision drugs.
A team from Geneva demonstrates the value of imaging to detect the presence of tau protein in the brain to predict cognitive decline due to Alzheimer’s disease.
To reduce avoidable errors, especially involving injectable medications in anaesthesia care, UK experts have published a new guidance on safe injection practice.
Experts have highlighted how precision pathology using Artificial Intelligence can provide an effective alternative to molecular diagnostics. This, say a team from the Karolinska Institutet (KI) in Stockholm, Sweden, can also offer multiple advantages within a clinical setting and support risk stratification.
Scientists have developed a tool to create a digital replica of an individual's heart, which could inform the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases.
University of Ottawa scientists have introduced a metal-free MRI dye capable of mapping kidney function with unprecedented accuracy — a promising technique for more personalized care.
By using genetic data on multiple traits from people of non-European ancestry, scientists have improved the accuracy of polygenic scores in predicting disease risk for all.
What will the future structure for artificial intelligence in health imaging across Europe look like? While the algorithms show great promise in collecting, storing, analysing, and using data to advance healthcare, delegates to a session on the topic at ECR 2023 in Vienna, also heard that it was important for the use of AI to move from research and more toward practical applications for patients.…
More than half a billion people are living with diabetes worldwide, and that number is projected to more than double to 1.3 billion people in the next 30 years.
US researchers evaluated AI techniques for cleaning medical images based on performance in clinical tasks. Some algorithms make the scans look better, but actually decrease image quality.
Genomic sequencing panels as part of personalised cancer treatment have been found to only benefit one in 20 patients they are currently used for, according to a study by CNIO.
Today, a large part of all further medical treatments is based on the results of laboratory analyses. The demand for complex test procedures remains high and the challenges for laboratories are growing.
Unanswered questions are hampering clinicians in their efforts to get the best out of a precision medicine approach for their patients. Speaking at the Genomics and Precision Medicine Expo in London at the end of May, cancer educator Dr Elaine Vickers said the benefits of being matched to an investigational drug remain questionable for most people with advanced cancer.
Gene alterations in biliary tract cancer offer potential targets for current or future precision therapies. This is demonstrated by a new study from Vienna.
A team of researchers from Denmark have developed a new AI framework to address the number of strokes that go unrecognised by human emergency call handlers.
An artificial intelligence developed at TU Wien (Vienna) can suggest appropriate treatment steps in cases of blood poisoning. The computer has already surpassed humans in this respect.
Clinicians in an intensive care unit need to make complex decisions quickly and precisely, monitoring critically ill or unstable patients around the clock.
A new study led by the University of Edinburgh has identfied areas of the brain susceptible to damage from high blood pressure, affecting memory loss, thinking skills and dementia.
A team of scientists has successfully generated genetically defined mouse models for two subtypes of multiple myeloma. This will contribute to a better understanding of how the disease develops in humans.
Omar Darwish, PhD student at King's College London, is researching new approaches to 3D MRE sequences for measuring liver fibrosis and inflammation simultaneously in obese patients.
The world's first MRI scanner with a magnetic field strength of 14 Tesla will be built in Nijmegen. Its high sensitivity will allow scientists to image the brain in more detail.
Philips is an active participant in the new European Federation for Cancer Images consortium (EUCAIM) – a project launched in the run-up to World Cancer Day 2023.
The Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI) will deploy a diagnostic platform from digital and computational pathology solutions provider Proscia, the company announced.
Some hospitalized patients’ infections may develop from their own bacteria, new research results suggest. The study in mice indicates that medical interventions can awaken dormant, hidden bacteria.
Transforming a regional digital pathology network into a national programme across the UK has the potential to save the NHS around £100m a year. Such a network – one that sees a centralised digital pathology image library and archive, as opposed to individual hospitals having their own infrastructure and teams to manage it – can also offer a range of other benefits alongside significant cost…
AI-based models for multimodality hybrid imaging have the potential to be a potent clinical tool but are currently held back by a lack of transparency and maturity, says Dr Irène Buvat, from the Laboratory of translational Imaging in Oncology, Institute Curie in Paris, France.
Researchers use AI to develop personalized 3D-printed joint implants so that these delicate finger parts can be replaced when necessary (e.g. after illness or injury).
An international team highlights the importance of localising BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations for the treatment of ovarian cancer.
Swiss researchers developed a new MRI method to visualise metabolic processes in the body. Their objective is to improve the future diagnosis and treatment of heart disease.
One robot supports the surgeon’s control of tiny instruments, while another automatically keeps an eye on what is happening: With this novel combination, surgeons in Münster have successfully performed fully robot-assisted microsurgery for the first time. Presenting the new procedure at the Hornheide Specialist Clinic, the experts explain how the interaction of both robotic systems ensures…
It is the size of a common pencil eraser, but it could have a huge impact on the therapy of glioblastoma: Scientists in Virginia have developed a novel 3D tissue-engineered model of the brain tumour microenvironment, which can be used to assess how the glioma cell invades healthy tissue, proliferates, and reacts to chemotherapy drugs.
Sepsis, a life-threatening, systemic, toxic bodily reaction to infection, is often difficult to detect in its early stages. Its symptoms, including fever, shortness of breath, rapid heart rate, and confusion, are associated with many medical conditions of hospitalized patients. But if not treated rapidly, a patient may die. The Targeted Real-time Early Warning System (TREWS) for sepsis detection…
An advanced radiotherapy technique can be used to safely treat prostate cancer patients in as little as one to two weeks, compared with the current standard, which takes one to two months.
99mTc-Sestamibi SPECT/CT can aid in the diagnosis of solid renal lesions, especially in cases where contrast enhanced CT findings are inconclusive, according to researchers from the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri.
As more genomic alterations become targets for therapy, health institutions and hospitals are creating specialist Molecular Tumour Boards to support better decision-making for patient care. This evolving team, and its role, was highlighted in a presentation at the 34th European Congress of Pathology in Basel, Switzerland.
Deaths from cancer are currently estimated at 10 million each year worldwide. Conventional cancer staging systems aim to categorize patients into different groups with distinct outcomes. ‘However, even within a specific stage, there is often substantial variation in patient outcomes,’ Markus Plass, academic researcher from the Medical University of Graz, Austria, explained to Healthcare in…
Antibiotic prescribing in primary care could be monitored using health insurance data. And reduced with a simple test.
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.
Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) have the potential to transform cancer treatment management worldwide. Their ability to rapidly analyse and integrate routinely acquired diverse data will improve the accuracy and effectiveness of precision medical treatments.
Artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to detect COVID-19 infection in people’s voices by means of a mobile phone app, according to research to be presented at the European Respiratory Society International Congress.
Researchers from the University of Bern and Inselspital provide an overview of the latest technologies in precision oncology. Translating these into clinical application is still a major challenge.
Two-dimensional (2D) cultured cell lines and animal models have been the principal research tools for the past decade, but have several shortcomings. Three-dimensional cell cultures, or organoids, show great promise here.
The interplay between the patient’s BMI, tumour size and cancer-specific proteins is of importance for the prognosis of breast cancer, a study from Sweden shows.
Cardiomyopathy is not a uniform disease. Rather, individual genetic defects lead to heart failure in different ways, an international consortium reports.
Functional ultrasound localization microscopy (fULM) captures the cerebral activity at the micron-scale, opening up major future clinical perspectives for the diagnosis of cerebrovascular pathologies.
Muscle strength is a powerful predictor of mortality that can quickly and inexpensively be assessed by measuring handgrip strength, researchers show in a new study.
A sensor identifies misfolded protein biomarkers in the blood. This offers a chance to detect Alzheimer's disease before any symptoms occur. Researchers intend to bring it to market maturity.
A Europe-wide project aims to improve medical radiation protection for patients and staff by better understanding and evaluating the health effects of exposure to low-dose ionising radiation resulting from diagnostic and therapeutic procedures.
Researchers in Sweden have now discovered a faster and easier way to determine who has an aggressive form of prostate cancer, and who has not.
MIT researchers produced textiles that sense the wearer’s posture and motions. Their “smart” shoes and mats could be used in applications ranging from health care to prosthetics.
The speedy, high-tech method of inexpensive, accurate and high-throughput protein biomarker assay testing is being touted as a much-needed development in point-of-care (PoC) testing.
A Stanford mechanical engineer creates multifunctional wireless robots to maximize health outcomes and minimize invasiveness of procedures.
Scientists have identified a new disease in a ground-breaking discovery that could help patients with unexplained liver and kidney problems.
Latest developments in computational protein design enable the simulation of sequence and structural changes in proteins for creating novel agents in human medicine.
Wireless bioresorbable pacemaker bypasses need to extract non-biodegradable leads, eliminating additional risk to the patient.
Hyperpolarized nuclear magnetic resonance enables major medical advances in molecular diagnostics, for example for cardiovascular diseases or cancer therapy.
A combination of digital pathology and quantitative biomarker analysis in the emerging concept of ‘smart’ cytology has a potential role in the detection and diagnosis of cancer.
A different way of treating people with prostate cancer will be investigated by researchers at the University of Leeds in a new clinical trial funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research.
A major advance demonstrates first multi-organ chip made of engineered human tissues linked by vascular flow for improved modeling of systemic diseases like cancer.
An international research team has now found an approach to lower the activation of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) and reduce the associated development of liver fibrosis.
Finding the right antibiotic dose is akin to a Goldilocks problem: give too little, and the infection will persist; too much, and side-effects will override the benefits of the therapy. To get it “just right”, Prof Dr Birgit Koch talks about dosing optimisation in the clinical setting.
Noninvasive sound technology breaks down liver tumors in rats, kills cancer cells and spurs the immune system to prevent further spread.
Researchers from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin have shown that massive electrochemical waves in the brain act as a marker announcing an impending ischemic stroke.
Big data is transforming diagnosis and medical care, but the critical challenge remains over how to equally apply the benefits it delivers across real-world clinical settings, according to industry expert Prof Benoît Macq.
3D-printed sugar models of dense and chaotic blood vessel networks near tumors could help future cancer treatments.
Contrast agents in the wastewater and power-hungry imaging systems: The eco-footprint of healthcare is huge, and radiology departments are among the main culprits. An expert panel at the ECR Overture explored ways to make the field “greener”.
A new research venture pairs cutting-edge particle accelerator science and radiation therapy.
In a pair of world firsts, scientists have 3D printed human testicular cells and identified promising early signs of sperm-producing capabilities.
The AI-Guided Ultrasound Intervention Device is a lifesaving technology that helps a range of users deliver complex medical interventions at the point of injury.
An ECRC research team has introduced CRISPR-Cas9 into human muscle stem cells for the first time using mRNA, thus discovering a method suitable for therapeutic applications.
For a long time, the origin of metastasis remained obscure. Now, scientists have discovered some of the mechanisms these cells arise.
Scientists have developed a neutron-based method to study brain slices and gain a better understanding of neurological diseases.
When combined with genetic risk factors, the test was up to 93 percent accurate at identifying people at risk of Alzheimer's dementia.
Researchers have identified a previously unrecognized key player in cancer evolution: clusters of mutations occurring at certain regions of the genome.
Children's National Hospital successfully performed the first-ever high-intensity focused ultrasound surgery on a pediatric patient with neurofibromatosis. This is the youngest patient to undergo HIFU treatment in the world.
Researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) develop a protocol to transplant 3D cellular structures that could regenerate damaged intestine.
Engineers at MIT have developed a kind of surgical duct tape — a strong, flexible, and biocompatible sticky patch that can be applied to biological tissues and organs to help seal tears and wounds.
Light therapy may accelerate the healing of skin damage from radiation therapy by up to 50%, according to a recent University at Buffalo-led study.
Cleveland Clinic has launched a landmark study to better understand why millions of people around the world suffer from brain diseases, with the goal of pinpointing disease biomarkers early, well before clinical symptoms present themselves.
Esslingen is one of the most innovative regions worldwide. Thus, it does not come as a surprise that Esslingen‘s 660-bed hospital is interested in adopting cutting-edge technology. A surgical robot, to be precise.
Under the roof of integrated diagnostics, radiology, laboratory medicine and pathology are forming a powerful alliance. Hedvig Hricak, MD, PhD, explains the potential for cancer patients and details the role of radiologists within the construct.
When a patient suffers a stroke, speed in treatment can mean the difference between successful recovery, permanent disability, or death. For Christopher Hess, success in stroke diagnosis is a question of workflow and efficient care delivery.
Dr Jan Stallkamp, Professor for Automation in Healthcare and Biotechnology, has a vision: robots that can treat patients more efficiently and more precisely than any human physician.
Rising temperatures due to climate change will lead to an increase in cases of kidney stones over the next seven decades, even if measures are put in place to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Mark Nicholls reports from the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) virtual Festival, with four expert speakers discussing the role of liquid biopsy in cancer detection.
Drug delivery, blood extraction, contrast agent injection – many procedures in modern medicine would be utterly impossible without needles. Despite the benefits, inserting pointy metal tubes into a patient also comes with several drawbacks. By downscaling the to micrometer-size, Japanese researchers open even more areas of application for needles, while bypassing some of the most important…
The light from a smartphone screen can be used to print medications, in a new 3D printing technique developed by UCL researchers.
A novel protein regulator of tumor angiogenesis, TMEM230, was recently characterized by researchers to have a role in tumor development and vascularization, with potential as a target for anti-tumor therapy in difficult-to-treat cancers such as glioblastoma.
Focused ultrasound waves create microbubbles in a fluid – a phenomenon called cavitation. In a current study, this process is used to destroy liver tumors and metastases. In this Medica-tradefair.com interview, Prof. Maciej Pech talks about testing cavitation events generated during histotripsy, explains the process, and reveals its advantages.
Since Compamed could only be held digitally last year, due to the pandemic, the event now takes place publicly again. Almost 500 registrations from exhibitors prove that there is a high level of interest from medical technology suppliers – a huge step towards reaching normality again.
Wearable technology has become an important part of medicine, from tracking vital signs to disease diagnosis. In surgery, wearable technologies can now assist, augment, and provide a means of patient assessment before, during and after surgical procedures. Wearable technologies are applied before the patient even reaches the operating room, for example in prehabilitation, i.e. pre-treatment…
How will digital technology impact healthcare in 2030? If challenges to acceptance and utilisation can be overcome, healthcare providers and patients will benefit significantly, according to physicians participating in a recent online seminar on this topic.
A study by the Universities of Basel and Saarland shows that there is almost no risk of transmission of the Covid-19 virus on the field. They suggest that blanket quarantine measures for opposing teams are not justified if no close contact has taken place off the playing field. Governments have introduced various measures over the past 18 months in an effort to curb transmission of the Covid-19…
The mechanisms by which the body measures temperature and regulates its own body heat are vital, but still poorly understood. The discovery of the first heat sensor on nerve cells in the skin, for which the U.S. molecular biologist David Julius received this year's Nobel Prize for Medicine, was therefore pioneering. However, a very similar heat sensor, the protein TRPM2, is active not only in the…
Fast, flexible laboratory information management systems (LIMS) that cope with data and workflow complexities of molecular and genetic testing now work in laboratories internationally. Here, in the first in a new Lab Pinnacle Series, experts from the CliniSys Group, Sunquest Information Systems and Data Innovations (all owned by Roper Technologies), discuss the value of a LIMS in molecular and…
Scientists have identified two subtypes of metastatic prostate cancer that respond differently to treatment.
New data highlights a promising new treatment for individuals with HER2-mutant non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
The role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the most divisive issues in cardiology. Two leading experts argue the pros and cons of its use, exploring its benefits and advantages to cardiac care, as well as highlighting the pitfalls and shortcomings of AI, while underlining the need for clear guidelines and regulations for its use going forward.
Researchers at Umeå University now demonstrate a method by which specific cell types in human organs can be studied with micrometer precision. The method can be used to reveal previously unrecognised alterations in the pancreas, but it can also be used to study other human organs and diseases.
Triage HF Plus, highlighted in the BCS conference session ‘Digital Innovation in Cardiology - What's new?’ is a digital heart failure care project that uses a customised algorithm to detect early signs of deterioration in patients with implanted devices. During her presentation ‘Digital solutions to identify worsening heart failure’, consultant cardiologist Dr Fozia Ahmed discussed the…
Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden can now report the results of a unique pilot project where drones were used to deliver defibrillators to real-life alerts of suspected cardiac arrest. The drones were dispatched in more than a fifth of the emergencies and arrived on target and ahead of the ambulance in most cases.
Scientists have grown beating heart cells to attempt to identify drugs to prevent Covid-19-related heart damage. Concerns over the extent of cardiac damage among Covid patients emerged during the coronavirus pandemic and there are also suggestions that the impact on cardiomyocytes could contribute to the symptoms of long Covid. To explore these issues, a research team at the University of…
A solid diagnosis has always been the first step on any patient’s journey to health. However, diagnostic categories are necessarily oversimplifications. In the last decades, medical professionals and scientists have begun to uncover the true variability in patients’ physiological and biochemical make-up that is the principal cause for individual variations in the way diseases present…
Digital pathology (DP) is a game-changer in the workflow, functionality and accessibility of a hospital’s pathology department. As pathologists understand the benefits, and the availability of commercial products and systems increase, alongside data transmission and storage costs decreasing, DP deployment in hospitals is accelerating. Pathology informatics expert Anil V Parwani MD PhD discussed…
A new study from the University of Helsinki shows that cells that are freshly isolated from lung cancers can be used to create robust drug response data. This approach can identify actionable or non-responsive treatments, illustrated by a case study in which the assay was used to guide the compassionate treatment of a patient.
Covid-19 disease severity is determined by the individual patient’s immune response. The precise mechanisms taking place inside the lungs and blood during the early phase of the disease, however, remain unclear. Researchers from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) and Freie Universität Berlin have now studied the cellular mechanisms…
Some people change the narrative about technology and society. One of them is Nuria Oliver, Chief Data Scientist at Data-Pop Alliance, Chief Scientific Advisor at the Vodafone Institute, and Co-founder and Vice-president of the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS). In an interview with HiE, she explains how she develops computational tools and uses artificial…
In view of the continuing high numbers of infections, vaccination offers important protection against severe Covid-19 disease. Scientists from the Faculty of Medicine – University of Freiburg have now been able to determine in detail at what time point initial immune protection is established after vaccination with an mRNA-based vaccine and how the reactions of the various components of the…
Antibiotic-resistant pathogens have become one of the greatest threats to public health. The basic mechanisms of resistance evolution have been well studied experimentally and are an important research field at Kiel University. An important factor in this context, but one that has received little attention so far, is the population size of the respective pathogen. Over the course of an infection…
Researchers at the Medical Faculty of the University of Freiburg have developed an improved therapeutic approach to resuscitate people after cardiac arrest - often without neurological complications. Around 50,000 people suffer sudden cardiac arrest in Germany every year. When occurring outside a hospital, the chances of survival are only ten percent. Survivors often suffer from severe permanent…
Molecular pathology company Xyall BV launches its Tissector High Throughput (HT) system for precision diagnostics. This is a world first – enabling high volume, molecular diagnostic laboratories to capitalize commercially on the company’s automated tissue dissection technology.
The Netherlands Cancer Institute, University of Amsterdam (UvA), and Elekta will collaborate on the development of new AI strategies for the further improvement of precision radiotherapy. This concerns the personalization of treatment by improving the quality of imaging used during treatment, predicting and accounting for changes in the patient’s anatomy over time, and automatically adapting…
Why do alterations of certain genes cause cancer only in specific organs of the human body? Scientists at the German Cancer Consortium (DKTK), the Technical University of Munich (TUM), and the University Medical Center Göttingen have now demonstrated that cells originating from different organs are differentially susceptible to activating mutations in cancer drivers: The same mutation in…
Cancer care and the treatment clinicians can offer patients is being increasingly enhanced by Artificial Intelligence (AI). The technology has a role in diagnosis, with algorithms trained to design and deliver patient care, can match patients to clinical trials they may benefit from, and even help predict outcomes and those at greatest risk.
Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers in the world, and one of the most difficult to treat. In 2020, an estimated 495,000 individuals worldwide were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and an estimated 466,000 died, according to statistics from the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer. Most patients with advanced disease die within a year of…
A novel method of gene therapy is helping children born with a rare genetic disorder called AADC deficiency that causes severe physical and developmental disabilities. The study, led by researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and The Ohio State University College of Medicine, offers new hope to those living with incurable genetic and neurodegenerative diseases.
An international team of scientists led by EPFL has developed a system that combines information from the brain’s connectome – the “wiring” between neurons – and machine learning to assess and predict the outcome of stroke victims. When blood flow to the brain is somehow reduced or restricted, a person can suffer what we know as a stroke (from “ischemic stroke” in medical jargon).…
A European comparative study has evaluated national organ donation policies in seven countries from an ethical perspective. For the first time, knowledge and attitudes towards organ donation regulations in different European countries were investigated in combination. The study was published in the journal PLOSone.
Over recent years interventional oncology (IO), as a subspecialty of interventional radiology, has become a standard component of many cancer therapies. The broad range of minimally invasive methods – and their results – are often comparable to those of traditional approaches, such as surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy, e.g. with regard to hepatocellular cancer (HCC), oligometastatic…
Researchers at Northwestern and George Washington (GW) universities have developed the first-ever transient pacemaker — a wireless, battery-free, fully implantable pacing device that disappears after it’s no longer needed. The thin, flexible, lightweight device could be used in patients who need temporary pacing after cardiac surgery or while waiting for a permanent pacemaker. All components…
A new imaging technique has the potential to detect neurological disorders at their earliest stages, enabling physicians to diagnose and treat patients more quickly.
Neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy have had some treatment success with deep brain stimulation, but those require surgical device implantation. A multidisciplinary team at Washington University in St. Louis has developed a new brain stimulation technique using focused ultrasound that is able to turn specific types of neurons in the brain on and off and precisely…
University of Washington researchers have discovered that AI models—like humans—have a tendency to look for shortcuts. In the case of AI-assisted disease detection, these shortcuts could lead to diagnostic errors if deployed in clinical settings.
Communities benefit from sharing knowledge and experience among their members. Following a similar principle - called “swarm learning” - an international research team has trained artificial intelligence algorithms to detect blood cancer, lung diseases and Covid-19 in data stored in a decentralized fashion. This approach has advantage over conventional methods since it inherently provides…
By 2030, the most lethal form of pancreatic cancer, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), is projected to become the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. Not only are therapeutic options limited, but nearly half of PDAC patients who have their tumors removed surgically experience disease recurrence within a year, even with chemotherapy. For more advanced stages,…
Before the huge potential of tiny nanocarriers for highly targeted drug delivery and environmental clean-up can be realized, scientists first need to be able to see them. Currently researchers have to rely on attaching fluorescent dyes or heavy metals to label parts of organic nanocarrier structures for investigation, often changing them in the process. A new technique using chemically-sensitive…
Specialist biorepositories are helping advance personalised medicine by supporting the availability of human tissue for research using digital pathology techniques. The pivotal role of the Glasgow Tissue Research Facility (GTRF) in making tissue available to shape new therapies and treatments was outlined in a presentation to the online “Transforming Digital Pathology – Integrating AI to Move…
Computer scientists at the University of California San Diego have developed a more accurate navigation system that will allow robots to better negotiate busy clinical environments in general and emergency departments more specifically. The researchers have also developed a dataset of open source videos to help train robotic navigation systems in the future. The team, led by Professor Laurel Riek…
A new low-cost method targeting genetic mutations often missed by existing diagnostic approaches has been developed. Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in the United States noted that most rearrangement mutations implicated in cancer and neurological diseases fall between what can be detected by DNA sequence reads and optical microscopy methods. The new technique combines…
Fluxergy envisions that a fully articulated democratized testing health system has the potential to reduce the likelihood and the ultimate severity of pandemics like Covid-19. Our mission is to unlock the true potential of diagnostics to play a far greater and more important role in the early detection of diseases and ongoing monitoring of health status, where and when it matters most: at the…
Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) want to build the world’s first prototype that tracks moving tumors with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in real time during proton therapy. They are combining a rotating open MRI device, designed for the LINAC-MR system from Alberta Health Services, with an actively scanned clinical-akin proton beam at OncoRay, the Dresden-based…
Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) develops within the liver. With one to two cases per 100,000 inhabitants in Germany, ICC is one of the rare diseases overall, but it is the second most common liver cancer. The aggressive bile duct tumour remains clinically inconspicuous for a long time, so that it is often only detected late. Because the tumour also only responds to chemotherapy to a limited…
Healthy and cancer cells can look similar under a microscope. One way of differentiating them is by examining the level of acidity, or pH level, inside the cells. Tapping on this distinguishing characteristic, a research team from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has developed a technique that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to determine whether a single cell is healthy or cancerous…
MRI scanning can more precisely define and detect head, neck, thoracic, abdominal and spinal malformations in unborn babies, finds a large multidisciplinary study led by King’s College London with Evelina London Children’s Hospital, Great Ormond Street Hospital and University College London (UCL). In the study, published in Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, the team of researchers and…
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is widely used to identify the narrowing or blockage of blood vessels. Contrast agents improve the visibility of the structures and offer more accurate information of vascular conditions such as vascular blockage and stenosis. Commonly used gadolinium-based contrast agents must be administered in chelated forms due to the gadolinium ions' high toxicity and pose…
A new study carried out by a team of laser physicists, molecular biologists and physicians based at LMU Munich and the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics has confirmed the temporal stability of the molecular composition of blood in a population of healthy individuals. The data provide a basis for a new method of monitoring the constituents of blood and detecting alterations that reveal…
A new deep learning system to help radiologists improve their workflow efficiency when reading high volumes of screening mammograms is being developed at Johns Hopkins University’s Radiology Artificial Intelligence Lab (RAIL) in Baltimore, MD. DeepCAT (Deep Computer-Aided Triage) is focused on workflow prioritization.
Harnessing the power of radiomics, and adopting an integrated approach to combine imaging and patient data could lead to better clinical cancer outcomes. The move has opened the door for clinicians to explore a non-invasive approach to identify the heterogeneity of a tumour and more accurately target regions for biopsy. During a presentation at ECR 2021 in March, Professor Evis Sala will…
Before Wilhelm Röntgen, a mechanical engineer, discovered a new type of electromagnetic radiation in 1895, physicians could only dream of being able to see inside the body. Within a year of Röntgen’s discovery, X-rays were being used to identify tumors. Within 10 years, hospitals were using X-rays to help diagnose and treat patients. In 1972, computed tomography (CT) scans were developed. In…
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have invented a new type of amputation surgery that can help amputees to better control their residual muscles and sense where their “phantom limb” is in space. This restored sense of proprioception should translate to better control of prosthetic limbs, as well as a reduction of limb pain, the researchers say. In most…
Inhibiting a key enzyme that controls a large network of proteins important in cell division and growth, paves the way for a new class of drugs that could stop glioblastoma, a deadly brain cancer, from growing. Researchers at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and University of Toronto (U of T), showed that chemically inhibiting the enzyme PRMT5 can…
A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis demonstrates that a liquid biopsy examining blood or urine can help gauge the effectiveness of therapy for colorectal cancer that has just begun to spread beyond the original tumor. Such a biopsy can detect lingering disease and could serve as a guide for deciding whether a patient should undergo further treatments due to some…
Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) and their colleagues published a new analysis from genetic sequencing data of more than 53,000 individuals, primarily from minority populations. The early analysis, part of a large-scale program funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, examines one of the largest and most diverse data sets of high-quality whole…
Researchers in Oxford have developed a machine learning algorithm that could significantly improve clinicians’ ability to identify hospitalised patients whose condition is deteriorating to the extent that they need intensive care. The HAVEN system (Hospital-wide Alerting Via Electronic Noticeboard) was developed as part of a collaboration between the University of Oxford’s Institute of…
Hybrid PET/CT imaging can fully play to its strengths and steer treatment towards more effective procedures for diagnosing prostate cancer. The examination of the specific antigen PSMA with hybrid PET imaging enables treatment monitoring with significantly higher diagnostic accuracy than conventional imaging and therefore, Professor Clemens Cyran believes, will soon become the standard diagnostic…
For several years, scientists worldwide have been investigating the extent to which microorganisms living in and on the human body influence central life processes and thus health and disease. Today they assume that there is a connection between the totality of the microbial colonization in the human body, called the microbiome, and the development of diseases. Chronic inflammatory bowel disease…
A new generation of tissue microarrays are delivering more efficient and time-effective solutions to answering complex clinical and scientific questions. Sitting at the core of this new approach is digital pathology, allowing specific and targeted analysis of small areas of tissue.
The advent of digital pathology is offering a unique opportunity to develop computerized image analysis methods to diagnose disease and predict outcomes for cancer patients from histopathology tissue sections. Such advances can help predict risk of recurrence, disease aggressiveness and long-term survival, according to a leading expert in the field, Professor Anant Madabhushi from Case Western…
An unfortunate truth about the use of mechanical ventilation to save the lives of patients in respiratory distress is that the pressure used to inflate the lungs is likely to cause further lung damage. In a new study, scientists identified a molecule that is produced by immune cells during mechanical ventilation to try to decrease inflammation, but isn’t able to completely prevent…
A scalpel-free alternative to brain surgery has the potential to benefit people with Parkinson’s disease symptoms that are much more severe on one side of the body, new research suggests. More testing is needed, but the approach, which uses a technology called focused ultrasound, could offer a new option for patients whose symptoms are poorly controlled by medications and those who cannot or do…
All prediabetes is not the same: in people in the preliminary stages of type 2 diabetes, there are six clearly distinguishable subtypes, which differ in the development of the disease, diabetes risk, and the development of secondary diseases. This is shown in a study by the Institute for Diabetes Research and Metabolic Diseases (IDM) of Helmholtz Zentrum München at the University of Tübingen,…
In the past few decades, researchers have identified biological pathways leading to neurodegenerative diseases and developed promising molecular agents to target them. However, the translation of these findings into clinically approved treatments has progressed at a much slower rate, in part because of the challenges scientists face in delivering therapeutics across the blood-brain barrier (BBB)…
This July, Fujifilm Sonosite launched Sonosite PX, its newest ultrasound system, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. Diku Mandavia, M.D., Chief Medical Officer of Fujifilm Sonosite, sat down with sonographer and Sonosite’s Director of Marketing Development Jodi Miller to discuss how Sonosite’s newest ultrasound system can help frontline health care workers combat the pandemic and why…
In April 2017, St. Marien Hospital in Siegen, Germany, made robotic history: it was the first hospital in Germany to introduce the Transenterix surgical robotic system. Since then, more than 450 surgeries were performed with the Senhance® surgical robotic system and the expertise of Professor Dr Dietmar Stephan, Head of Minimally Invasive Surgery, is in high demand – worldwide.
In the COVID-19 pandemic, 57 million people have already been infected worldwide. In the search for vaccines and therapies, a precise understanding of the virus, its mutations and transmission mechanisms is crucial.
In early 1990, at Analytica, in Munich, a young US-American researcher Kary B Mullis received the award for biochemical analytics for his 1983 invention: the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) – a success topped in 1993 by the Nobel Prize for chemistry. Mullis’ work revolutionised DNA copying, a process which, before PCR, had taken weeks. Whilst initially PCR was used to create digital…
Large proportions of patients can be safely triaged either to rule out discharge or rule in lifesaving management – if following the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Guidelines Class I recommendation of two serial measurements of hs-cTnI on admission and after one hour, if there are assay specific cut off values for the 0/1 algorithms. The Pathfast hs-cTNI assay is an approved system to…
Launched in 2011, the Pan-Cancer Project, involved more than 1,300 scientists and clinicians in 37 countries, and analysed more than 2,600 genomes of 38 tumour types. Discovery: The first indications of cancer development can be found in genes at a very early stage, which triggers new opportunities for treatment.
oyal Philips announced the completion of a regional informatics project that consolidates radiology and nuclear medicine imaging data. The Region of Southern Denmark now has a single system for storing, retrieving, and viewing clinical images across all the locations and specialties in its extensive healthcare system.
Scientists cannot be expected to drop everything they’re working on to turn their attention to beating COVID-19, according to the winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Professor Sir Peter Ratcliffe. Speaking before he delivered the prestigious Michel Clavel lecture to the 32nd EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics, which was due to take place…
Is mammography still the best method for breast cancer screening? For a number of breast cancers, the latest scientific findings suggest otherwise. For more than a decade, Professor Christiane Kuhl MD, Director of the Clinic for Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology at the University Hospital RWTH Aachen, has researched the use of MRI in breast cancer screening.
In 2019, the Central Laboratory of the Institute for Clinical Chemistry and Pathobiochemistry at the Klinikum rechts der Isar of the Technical University Munich, headed by Professor Peter B Luppa, organised the 4th of the internationally renowned Munich Point-of-Care Testing Symposiums. Dr Andreas Bietenbeck is senior physician at the Institute which for many years has been focusing on…
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020 to Emmanuelle Charpentier from the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens, Berlin, Germany, and Jennifer A. Doudna from the University of California, Berkeley, USA, “for the development of a method for genome editing”, more commonly known as the 'gene scissors' CRISPR/Cas9.
The anatomical pathologist faces a crisis. Public and private labs suffer increasing caseloads, whilst pathologist numbers diminish for various reasons, including greater cancer prevalence associated with aging populations as well as improved cancer screening programs. Precision medicine typically involves more genetic testing and extensive use of immunohistochemistry to classify cancer and…
The healthcare system of Taiwan, renowned for its ability to tackle challenges, has held up very well during the COVID-19 pandemic. To underline the nation’s role as a healthcare innovator, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) presented several of the most promising companies and their products in an exclusive webinar. The event showcased cutting-edge technologies as well as…
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…
Random Walk Imaging AB (RWI), a company developing novel software solutions for diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), announced the launch of its first commercial software product for clinical researchers and radiologists. The dViewr Powered by Mice Toolkit is the result of a collaboration with Nonpi Medical AB, with whom RWI has entered into an exclusive license and development agreement…
Rapid first aid during cardiac arrest makes the difference between life and death. But what happens to the heart and the internal organs when people come running and begin to give well-meaning but heavy-handed heart massage as they attempt to keep the person who has suffered a cardiac arrest alive? A research collaboration between the Department of Forensic Medicine at Aarhus University and the…
A collaboration led by the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) and McMaster University has led to the discovery and diagnosis of an aggressive malignant bone cancer — an osteosarcoma — for the first time ever in a dinosaur. Examples of malignant cancers are very rare in the fossil record. The paper was published in the journal The Lancet Oncology. The cancerous bone in question is the fibula (lower…
In recent years, technological and regulatory advances have made digital pathology a viable alternative to the conventional microscope. The obtention of a digital replica of the traditional glass slide and its use for primary diagnosis has revolutionized pathology and is shaping the future of the discipline. A digital pathology lab uses digital histology slides for routine diagnosis, and these…
Approximately one fifth of COVID-19 patients admitted to German hospitals between the end of February and mid-April died. For patients receiving ventilation, the mortality rate was 53%. For those not receiving ventilation, the rate was significantly lower at 16%. 17% of all patients were ventilated during this period. These are the main results of an analysis by WIdO, the research institute of…
To answer medical questions that can be applied to a wide patient population, machine learning models rely on large, diverse datasets from a variety of institutions. However, health systems and hospitals are often resistant to sharing patient data, due to legal, privacy, and cultural challenges. An emerging technique called federated learning is a solution to this dilemma, according to a study…
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Associate Professor Mikala Egeblad and her colleagues describe a newly understood way by which breast cancer cells sabotage a key player in the body’s immune system. That key player provides local immune surveillance by activating killer T-cells, but if it cannot mature and do its job, breast cancer cells can escape detection from the immune system,…
There are major complications from COVID-19 – ARDS, pulmonary embolism and neurological – that imaging can help detect, manage and/or follow up in the long term, radiologists from France and the UK explained during a recent ESR Connect session. ARDS is the most dreaded complication and the number one morbidity in COVID-19 patients. The incidence was up to 30% of patients in initial reports.…
Luis Martí-Bonmatí, Director of the Medical Imaging Department at La Fe Hospital in Valencia, highlighted the need to assess utility when developing AI tools during ECR 2020. Artificial intelligence (AI) can impact and improve many aspects of clinical practice. But current expectations are too great and need to be toned down by looking at opportunities.
This year’s ”MS Experts Summit” sees 18 clinicians and researchers convene online for seven sessions during this summer. Under the motto “People with MS: 360º evidence-based daily management” international speakers with expertise in various domains of multiple sclerosis (MS) exchange their latest advances in managing patients suffering from this disease. In his talk “MRI imaging in…
Public Health England, in partnership with the University of Oxford, recently conducted a head-to-head evaluation of four commercial immunoassay tests available in the UK and used for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.
In the world of laboratory diagnostics, ‘Abbott’ is a household name. Few people however are aware of the fact that the company, headquartered in Illinois, USA, is also leading in other fields. A number of innovations in cardiac and vascular diagnostics and therapy might soon put Abbott in the limelight. Dr Angela Germer, Regional Director DACH, and Volker Keller, Head of Marketing DACH,…
Infection with the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 follows a highly variable course: some of those infected do not even notice it, while others become so seriously ill that their lives are placed at risk. Scientists from the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and their colleagues from Leipzig and Heidelberg have now discovered that the immune system has a…
A new joint report from the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) presents the largest venture ever on precision medicine in diabetes. The report includes a detailed overview and roadmap for how this new approach to diabetes medicine can be evaluated and implemented into clinical practice.
Biomedical engineering researchers at Texas A&M University designed a medical device that mimics blood vessels to design and monitor drugs for patients with clotting disorders. This approach could be especially beneficial for pediatric patients. Unlike what a biology textbook may show, blood vessels are not straight cylinders. They are tortuous, meaning they have complex curves, spirals and…
Researchers at the University of Zurich have developed a new X-ray contrast agent which is easier to use and distributes into all blood vessels more reliably, increasing the precision of vascular imaging. This reduces the number of animals required in research experiments. Various diseases in humans and animals – such as tumors, strokes or chronic kidney disease – damage the blood vessels.…
A recent study conducted by the Faculty of Medicine at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CU Medicine) discovered a novel genetic biomarker which can predict the survival of head and neck cancer patients. There are over 0.7 million new head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) cases globally each year. However, currently there is no clinical implementation of any genetic biomarker to…
Roswell Biotechnologies, Inc., a manufacturer of molecular electronics sensor chips, and imec, a research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technologies, announced a partnership to develop the first commercially available molecular electronics biosensor chips. These chips are the brains behind Roswell Technologies' new platform for DNA sequencing, to support precision medicine,…
A new way to deliver therapeutic proteins inside the body uses an acoustically sensitive carrier to encapsulate the proteins and ultrasound to image and guide the package to the exact location required, according to Penn State researchers.
The Central Laboratory at the Medical University Hanover, Germany, is prepared to handle virtually any clinical chemistry task, from a routine test to the most complex analysis. Equipped with state-of-the-art technology and thanks to a high degree of automation, the team can process more than 3,000 specimens, mostly blood and urine, in a single day. Professor Ralf Lichtinghagen, European…
Computational pathology has increased applications for diagnosis, prediction of prognosis and therapy response, facilitating the movement of healthcare towards personalised medicine. Coupled with deep learning, such tools are ever more efficient and robust within research and clinical settings. The growing role of computational pathology was highlighted by Professor Andrew Janowczyk at the…
BellaSeno GmbH, a company developing absorbable scaffolds using additive manufacturing technologies, announced a collaboration with Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin under the recently established SyMBoD consortium. Under the agreement, BellaSeno will design and manufacture personalized, 3D-printed, absorbable implants suitable for the treatment of diabetes patients with bone defects. The…
Diseases of the brain are often associated with typical vascular changes. Now, scientists at LMU University Hospital Munich, Helmholtz Research Centre for Environmental Health and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have come up with a technique for visualising the structures of all the brain's blood vessels – right down to the finest capillaries – including any pathological changes. So…
As a highly innovative medical specialisation, radiology increasingly takes advantage of the possibilities offered by artificial intelligence (AI). Yet, there is no risk for the future of the specialty. Demands on this discipline are too complex, too communicative. Thus, machines will not replace a radiologist any time soon – of that Uwe Joseph Schöpf, professor of radiology, cardiology and…
Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to improve efficiencies and precision in sleep medicine, resulting in more patient-centered care and better outcomes, according to a new position statement from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, the position statement was developed by the AASM’s Artificial Intelligence in Sleep Medicine…
Scientists have created one of the most detailed maps of breast cancer ever achieved, revealing how genetic changes shape the physical tumour landscape. An international team of scientists, brought together by a £20 million Grand Challenge award from Cancer Research UK, has developed intricate maps of breast tumour samples, with a resolution smaller than a single cell. These maps show how the…
Researchers at Linköping University (LiU) have developed an algorithm that can identify patients at a higher risk of septic shock, a life-threatening condition that is difficult for doctors to predict. At the same time, it is important to recognise the symptoms as early as possible, since early treatment increases the chance of survival. A group of LiU researchers is using artificial…
Toshiba and the Tohoku University Medical Megabank Organisation (ToMMo) has succeeded in demonstrating the world’s first quantum cryptography transmission of whole-genome sequence data, with data volumes exceeding several hundred gigabytes. Since speeds for key distribution in quantum cryptographic communication technologies are currently about 10 Mbps at maximum, the speed at which data can be…
Researchers at Cardiff University have discovered a new type of killer T-cell that offers hope of a “one-size-fits-all” cancer therapy. T-cell therapies for cancer - where immune cells are removed, modified and returned to the patient’s blood to seek and destroy cancer cells - are the latest paradigm in cancer treatments. The most widely-used therapy, known as CAR-T, is personalised to each…
A team of researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has discovered a new personalised tool to detect cancer, predict patient survivability and how well a cancer patient would respond to immunotherapy. This tool is a specially-designed cancer 'scorecard' to be used with the standard blood test for cancer (also known as liquid biopsy). This 'scorecard', which the team termed as…
A novel method of combining advanced optical imaging with an artificial intelligence algorithm produces accurate, real-time intraoperative diagnosis of brain tumors, a new study finds. Published in Nature Medicine, the study examined the diagnostic accuracy of brain tumor image classification through machine learning, compared with the accuracy of pathologist interpretation of conventional…
Brain imaging of pathological tau-protein “tangles” reliably predicts the location of future brain atrophy in Alzheimer’s patients a year or more in advance, according to a new study by scientists at the UC San Francisco Memory and Aging Center. In contrast, the location of amyloid “plaques,” which have been the focus of Alzheimer’s research and drug development for decades, was found…
Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have discovered a way to move precision immunotherapy forward by using genomics to inform immunotherapy for multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, according to a study published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, in December. This is the first study to experimentally determine which…
An enthralling insight into the care that could be offered to cancer patients of the future was presented by cancer imaging expert Professor Regina Beets-Tan during her a keynote presentation at the recent British Institute of Radiology congress. In the session ‘Oncologic imaging: Future perspectives’, the professor outlined what a Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) of the future – a team in…
Prostate cancer is the second cause of cancer-related death in men. Currently, its diagnosis occurs via imaging and must be confirmed by biopsy. Simona Turco from the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) wants to improve prostate cancer diagnosis by using machine learning algorithms to localize tumors and thereby replace entirely the necessity for biopsies. Besides, by combining this with…
Complex challenges require interdisciplinary approaches. To find out at first hand which topics are of interest to experts is the key objective of ETIM 2020 (Emerging Technologies in Medicine), which is held from February 28-29 in Essen, Germany. Be there when experienced physicians, engineers and computer scientists talk about future topics in radiology. And after the lectures, take advantage of…
Radiomics is one of the most exciting topics in radiology. It involves data and artificial intelligence (AI) but very few people know or understand the details. In her lecture ‘How does Radiomics work?’, presented at the German Radiology Congress in Leipzig, Professor Ulrike Attenberger outlined how radiomics will advance radiology but also the obstacles faced along the way.
Medication prescribed for a certain type of epilepsy may offer a new method for treating malignant infantile brain tumours. A specific mTOR inhibitor has the ability to cross the blood–brain barrier to both reach and attack the tumour at source. This has been demonstrated by researchers from Uppsala University, in collaboration with US and UK colleagues, whose research has now been published in…
Antibiotic-resistant pathogens pose one of the greatest threats to public health worldwide. In the near future, harmless bacterial infections may no longer be treatable and may again become the most common non-natural cause of death. At the same time, the available repertoire of antibacterial agents is becoming increasingly smaller as resistance rates rise.
With the right tools, physicians could transform the lives of patients and scientists. For Kimberly Powell, Vice President of Healthcare at NVIDIA, artificial intelligence is such a tool, and could meet the increasing demand for personalised medicine and next-generation clinics. ‘AI is the biggest technological breakthrough of our lifetime.’
September: Basel, Switzerland: ‘Intelligent Health 2019’, a conference dedicated to artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine, underlined the growing interest by the rising number of attendees – 1,400 in 2018, its first year, to 2,027 this year. With examples of AI use from around the world, the common thread throughout was how AI can serve humankind by enabling better understanding of…
‘Northern Ireland (NI) is a prime location for Life & Health Sciences businesses, thanks to a unique combination of talented people, world-class research and strong links between industry, academia and clinicians, in the commercialisation of innovative research,’ as explained by the organisers of the Northern Ireland exhibits in Hall 16 Stand K11-1. ‘The region has a strong reputation…