Current faecal blood tests for colorectal cancer have a sixty percent false positive rate. New funding from Cancer Research UK is helping scientists at Cardiff University to find better, safer tests. Inaccuracy of initial tests for colorectal cancer are putting patients at unnecessary risk, highlighting vital need for the development of precise and non-invasive testing. A grant of over £400,000…
Horiba Medical announces the availability of a D-Dimer reagent for their semi-automated Hemostasis instruments. The D-Dimer is a key measurement and the reference exclusion test for the diagnosis of deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism and may also be used for monitoring Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation. The new Yumizen D-Dimer reagent kit is available for Yumizen G hemostasis…
Brain imaging in patients with cognitive complaints need to be viewed differently when using MRI to diagnose and treat patients with dementia, says Dr. Christopher Hess, who will discuss the role of MRI in the adjunctive diagnosis of dementia in his talk at the Garmisch Symposium. In addition, general radiologists need to recognize the important findings related to dementia when making a…
Researchers have developed a prototype medical device based on silicon photonics for the screening of arterial stiffness and for the diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases such as arterial stenosis and heart failure. This is a cooperation between imec, the world-leading research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technology and Ghent University, together with Medtronic and other…
Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine have identified in live human brains new radioactive “tracer” molecules that bind to and “light up” tau tangles, a protein associated with a number of neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s disease and other related dementias.
Vaginitis is one of the most common problems in clinical medicine, and it is the reason cited most often for visits to obstetricians and gynecologists. In a special webinar, Prof. Dr. Werner Mendling will discuss the 2018 European International Union against Sexually Transmitted Infections (IUSTI) and World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines on the management of vaginal discharge in detail. …
Flow cytometry has proved an invaluable diagnostic tool for leukaemia and lymphoma for almost three decades. Now, however, this is evolving in applications to seek out residual disease in cases and in fusion with molecular testing to advance its diagnostic potential. However, although recognised as fast, flexible and accurate, flow cytometry suffers from a lack of standardisation, according to…
With Artificial Intelligence (AI) able to deliver diagnostic advances for clinicians and patients, the focus has shifted towards ensuring the technology is used in an ethical and responsible way. As evidence emerges of a gap in research on ethical deployment of AI, Dr Gopal Ramchurn is embarking on a three-year research project that will look at setting parameters for AI usage, with a key aspect…
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and the University of Leeds have announced a critical milestone in going digital, by scanning every glass slide they produce. The milestone represents a major step towards achieving faster and accurate diagnosis for cancer patients in the future. The Pathology Department, located in St. James’ Hospital in Leeds, is one of the largest in the UK processing over…
Built as the first commercially available scanner to deliver truly digital PET, the Vereos PET/CT, from Philips, offers revolutionary Digital Photon Counting technology. The science behind this scanner evolution is ‘quite complicated’, agrees Piotr Maniawski, Director of Clinical Science Nuclear Medicine at Philips Healthcare, yet the improved performance is significant, particularly when…
Cardiologists in the UK are trialling an artificial intelligence (AI) system that will help better diagnose heart disease. Devised by researchers from the University of Oxford, it can predict heart disease and cardiac events from ultrasound stress test images with initial results showing that the AI system is far more accurate than conventional techniques. Paul Leeson, Professor of Cardiovascular…
GE Healthcare introduces Versana Premier – an ultrasound system that can help deliver high-quality, personalized care, patient after patient, day after busy day. This innovative system is well suited for general practice clinics, physical check-up centers, community health clinics, and other facilities offering basic medical care. It is versatile to cover abdominal, OB/GYN, cardiac, urology,…
Although traditionally an imaging modality, ultrasound also has applications as a measurement tool. An innovative application is to assess ear infections. Otitis Media (OM), a middle ear infection, is the number one indication for antibiotic prescriptions for children and the leading cause for surgery. This problem is global. Nearly every child will suffer at least one middle ear infection severe…
Recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) created a veritable hype. However, that initial awe was increasingly mixed with apprehension about the potential effects of AI on healthcare. In radiology, bleak dystopias are conjured up with AI replacing the human radiologist. A scenario that Dr Felix Nensa considers premature, to say the least.
Often referred to as the ‘Achilles’ heel’ of histopathology, the sample entry has posed considerable challenges in pre-analytics for several decades. We visited the Munich-based lab automation start-up Inveox GmbH. Time-intense, highly manual processes in labs are expensive, error-prone and the most common reason for irregularities in cancer diagnoses. In Germany alone, every year hundreds…
Researchers at McMaster University have solved a vexing problem by engineering surface coatings that can repel everything, such as bacteria, viruses and living cells, but can be modified to permit beneficial exceptions. The discovery holds significant promise for medical and other applications, making it possible for implants such as vascular grafts, replacement heart valves and artificial joints…
As in many other countries, Belgium faces a significant shortage of health professionals – particularly pathologists to guarantee the diagnostic quality necessary for adequate therapeutic choice. A digital pathology platform can be a true ally; the Brussels Erasmus Hospital opted for that solution. Project manager Dr Ali Ramadhan shared his experience – the good, the bad and the ugly – at…
The European Institute for Biomedical Imaging Research (EIBIR) has published its Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) for Biomedical Imaging. The agenda identifies current challenges and needs in healthcare, illustrating how biomedical imaging and derived data can help to address these challenges, in order to stimulate dedicated research funding efforts and mechanisms.
A team of researchers at the University of Cologne's Faculty of Medicine and the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) use a novel immunochromatographic method to detect bacteria that are resistant to the antibiotic group carbapenemes within 20 to 45 minutes from blood cultures with 100 percent certainty.
Pancreatic cancer is currently very difficult to detect while it is still resectable. A new blood test developed by researchers at Lund University in Sweden, Herlev Hospital, Knight Cancer Center and Immunovia AB, can detect pancreatic cancer in the very earliest stages of the disease.
Neuroscientist Lynda Chin MD, Founder and CEO of Real-world Education Detection and Intervention, has little doubt: ‘Artificial intelligence to the rescue,’ she proclaimed in her keynote address at the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Summit, held in Las Vegas this spring. ‘We need a system and analytics to interpret data!’ she urged, despite being well aware that building a…
Experts report that a new blood test to diagnose heart attacks could be carried out on a hand-held device in the not-too-distant future. The test, devised by a team at Kings College London, uses similar technology to the troponin test, but instead analyses cardiac myosin-binding protein C (cMyC). In research presented at the British Cardiovascular Society conference in Manchester, UK, this June,…
Nanomedicine will play an increasingly important role in future diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease, a subject explored in detail by four expert speakers at the British Cardiovascular Society conference in Manchester in June. The conference heard that the technology – dealing with dimensions and tolerances of less than 100 nanometres, especially the manipulation of individual…
A recent study, performed in Chicago and Rabat, Morocco, found that a novel finger-prick test for infection with the parasite Toxoplasma gondii during pregnancy — and many other potential applications — is 100 percent sensitive and 100 percent specific for detecting the presence of this life-damaging microorganism.
For the first time, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Imperial College London, with international collaborators, have determined that Kawasaki disease (KD) can be accurately diagnosed on the basis of the pattern of host gene expression in whole blood. The finding could lead to a diagnostic blood test to distinguish KD from other infectious and inflammatory…
