Merivaara has unveiled one of the world’s most versatile operating tables for elective procedures. The new, smarter Practico was designed to improve ergonomics with the industry’s widest range of posture possibilities. “Customers have been asking for a table like this for years,” says Jyrki Nieminen, Merivaara’s R&D director. “It has been in development for two years and we have…
Sutures and staples are the traditional methods for closing surgical incisions and wounds in emergency situations. However, these methods can be inadequate in complex surgeries and cannot make an air-tight or liquid-tight seal on a lung or artery wound or incision. Now researchers funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) have created a surgical glue that…
In Rennes, France, more than 850 patients have already been treated with a top accelerator equipped with a multileaf collimator, the first of its kind in the country. Brittany’s capital Rennes is leading stereotactic radiotherapy practice as Eugène Marquis Cancer Centre gears up to welcome worldwide technicians to train on the latest CyberKnife system, Accuray’s powerful robotic radiosurgery…
3-D visualisation, augmented reality, automated tumour classification – today, the Republic of China produces cutting-edge medical technology and it’s a long time since ‘Made in Taiwan’ stood for inferior, copied products. Over recent years, this island state has successfully morphed into a productive and, above all, innovative manufacturer of medical technology available on the world…
Infections associated with osteosynthesis and prostheses are not to be underestimated: the infection rate is reported to be one to three percent after joint prosthetic surgery and five to 10 percent after osteosyntheses. ‘When you include later infections, the rate is twice as high,’ says Professor Andrej Trampuz, infectologist and Head of the Centre for Septic Surgery at the Centre of…
The Assistance Publique Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) has organized, in partnership with TeraRecon, Vizua, Microsoft and Digital Evolutis, the live broadcast of the first surgery performed in the world with a collaborative platform of mixed reality at the Avicenne Hospital AP-HP, and interacting with remote doctors. Dr. Gregory Thomas, Head of Orthopedic Surgery and Traumatology Hospital Avicenne…
You may know that your surgeon is using the latest minimally invasive technology for your surgery, but how do you know if they’ve mastered it? To help answer that question, researchers at Keck Medicine of USC looked to a custom recording tool similar in concept to a flight recorder on an airplane. When attached to a robotic surgery system during radical prostatectomy procedures, the most common…
Determining where breast cancer ends and healthy tissue begins is a critical part of breast cancer surgery. Surgeons are used to working closely during surgery with anatomic pathologists who generate pathology reports that specify the surgical or tumor margin, an area of healthy tissue surrounding a tumor that also must be excised to ensure none of the tumor is left behind. This helps prevent the…
People sometimes joke that easy tasks are “not brain surgery.” But what happens when it actually is brain surgery? How old is too old to be a neurosurgeon? In a new Mayo Clinic Proceedings study, most neurosurgeons disagreed with an absolute age cutoff, but half favored additional testing for neurosurgeons 65 and older. Some professions, including commercial pilots, FBI agents and air traffic…
Manufactured in Italy, the STARLED3 NX lamp, based on next generation LED technology, provides cold, shadowless light, long life and low energy consumption, and directs light beams according to needs, so is suitable for diagnosis, gynaecology, dermatology, general medicine and surgery.
A major addition to Ikegami’s range of surgical monitors is being launched at Medica this year. ‘The new MLW-2750HD is a 27-inch 4K UHD display in a shallow-profile configuration, fully optimised for use in operating rooms,’ the manufacturer reports. ‘With its 800 cd/m2 high brightness IPS 8 megapixel display panel, this new monitor improves the efficiency of medical teams by enabling…
Given the aim to provide ‘affordable care’, the economical organisation of operating theatres is critical. Surgical procedures also contribute as much as 60-70% of hospital revenues. Thus surgical efficiency and flexibility are paramount in surgical departments.
A pioneering single-use Diathermy Abbey Needle with suction that helps surgeons improve performance and outcomes during a range of procedures is on show at this year’s Medica.
New navigation imaging and neurophysiological stimulation techniques enable an approach to brain tumours long considered unresectable before and during surgery, but not one does it quite as well as ultrasound, according to a leading Spanish neurosurgeon.
Medical Augmented Reality (AR) assistance systems overlay information onto a surgeon’s field of view. This technology is complex and expensive. Therefore, the procedure must offer a big advantage compared to conventional treatment and diagnostic methods to qualify for standard use. The objective is a system that shows a surgeon a 3-D image of inside the body plus instruments used during surgery…
In a spectacular development, Spanish researchers demonstrate for the first time that 3-D printing can be used to produce human skin deemed appropriate for transplants and testing applications.
Award-winning UK manufacturer of sterile single-use surgical instruments, DTR Medical are showcasing their new House Curette and Rosen Needle at Medica this year. ‘The House Curette includes sharp, dual action tips that scrape and scoop tough cortical bone during middle ear procedures,’ the firm explains. ‘The double-ended stainless steel instrument has clearly labelled 2.0 and 3.0mm ends,…
The Virtual Fracture Clinic (VFC) established by the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust sees patients with broken bones or soft tissue injury supported through video links and self-management methods, rather than make additional journeys to hospital for face-to-face appointments with orthopaedic consultants.
Point-of-care ultrasound is a valuable tool for successful dialysis fistula surgery, allowing pre-operative mapping to find a suitable site and post-operative fistula scanning to check for stenosis and adequate blood flow. Anna Jerram, a clinical vascular scientist at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, discusses the role POC ultrasound played during a recent trip to the Gambia to provide critical…
A Stanford study of nearly 24,000 patients with kidney cancer concluded that robot-assisted laparoscopic surgeries are associated with increases in operating times and cost compared with conventional laparoscopic surgeries. However, the two approaches have comparable patient outcomes and lengths of hospital stay, the study showed.
Patients significantly overestimate the anticipated amount of pain they’ll experience following surgery, which researchers say can cause unnecessary anxiety in patients, according to a new study. Patients who receive regional anesthesia, such as peripheral nerve blocks, epidurals or spinal anesthesia, were most likely to overestimate their postoperative pain.
The Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI) announced that it has received funding from the Dutch Cancer Society to test whether a novel molecular imaging technology can guide prostate cancer surgery. The project will evaluate the imaging technology’s ability to detect prostate cancer during surgery, with the aim of performing more accurate removal of cancerous tissue. Prostate cancer is the most…
Surgeons at Penn Medicine are using a fluorescent dye that makes cancerous cells glow in hopes of identifying suspicious lymph nodes during head and neck cancer procedures. Because the tumors glow, surgeons get real-time guidance to help them take out as much cancer as possible and leave non-diseased tissue alone.
Researchers at the James Cook University Hospital, in Middlesbrough, UK, have developed a highly sensitive blood test that could be used before surgical operations to predict which patients are at risk of complications will survive in the long-term.
Scientists in the United Kingdom are investigating the potential of a new regenerative and tissue engineering technique that could transform veins into arteries to improve the outcomes for patients undergoing heart bypass surgery.
