Should video cameras record surgical procedures? Athletes and sports teams review videotapes of their performance to learn how to make improvements. Could surgeons and operating theatre teams use videotapes for quality improvement and to increase patient safety and clinical outcomes by identifying and reducing errors or bad practice? Or would this be an intrusion, a distraction for a surgical…
With 3-D printing revolutionising manufacturing, its healthcare potential is being explored for medical devices, prosthetics, dentistry and drug development. One area under the spotlight is the creation of artificial muscles using a 3-D printing system. Dr Fergal Coulter, who has played an important role in helping develop the technique, outlined the manufacturing process, which he invented for…
Studies are underway to determine if a new modular partial wrist replacement will allow for better movement and last longer than traditional implants for people seeking relief from painful wrist arthritis. Although current options such as total wrist replacement and wrist fusion can alleviate pain, patients are often limited in performing certain activities after surgery.
A new 3D computer modeling system may significantly improve a surgeon's ability to select the best sized donor heart for children receiving heart transplants, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2015.
Surgeons at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) joined with colleagues from Penn Medicine recently to complete the world’s first bilateral hand transplant on a child. Earlier this month, the surgical team successfully transplanted donor hands and forearms onto eight-year-old Zion Harvey who, several years earlier, had undergone amputation of his hands and feet and a kidney…
Brain tumor tissue can be hard to distinguish from normal brain during surgery. Neurosurgeons use their best judgment in the operating room but often must guess exactly where the edges of the tumor are while removing it.
Some six million people in the U.S. suffer from scoliosis, a sideways curvature of the spine. These include approximately 2 to 3% of adolescents who are diagnosed each year with idiopathic scoliosis, which is usually identified during puberty and progresses until skeletal maturity. One in 500 children today require treatment using spine braces and 1 in 5,000 need spinal surgery. The typical spine…
When surgical residents need to practice a complicated procedure to fashion a new ear for children without one, they typically get a bar of soap, carrot or an apple. To treat children with a missing or under-developed ear, experienced surgeons harvest pieces of rib cartilage from the child and carve them into the framework of a new ear. They take only as much of that precious cartilage as they…
Twin girls born joined at the pelvic and hip region are recovering after separation surgery at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. The girls are named Acen and Apio, but on Thursday they were carefully labeled “blue” and “red” to help surgeons know which monitoring equipment belonged to each sister as they carefully separated their spines, muscle and tissue.
Fetuses with enlarged ventricles--the fluid-filled cavities inside the brain--may be less likely than their counterparts to benefit from surgery in the womb to treat spina bifida, according to a study supported by the National Institutes of Health.
Vascular surgeon Pat Kelly of Sanford Health in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, knew his patients were doing better with the stent graft he designed, but he wanted a better understanding of the mechanics before testing the device more widely in a clinical trial. For that, he reached out to South Dakota State University. Associate professor Stephen Gent in mechanical engineering had done computational…
They did it for heart attacks. Can cardiologists now lead an effort to speed up the emergency medical response for stroke? Over the past five years, the Stent for Life initiative organised by interventional cardiologists has pushed majors medical centres to assure 24/7 coverage and reduce the time to treatment for patients showing up with severe chest pain.
The Society of Thoracic Surgeons, the Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists, and the American Society of ExtraCorporeal Technology have released a set of clinical practice guidelines to address management of a patient's temperature during open heart surgery. The guidelines appear in the August issue of The Annals of Thoracic Surgery and were published simultaneously in two other journals.
‘Health insurers should keep a tighter rein on the quality of endoscopic interventions because, mostly, they represent a gentler alternative to surgery,’ asserts international expert Horst Neuhaus, during an EH interview. Report: Daniela Zimmermann/Juliane Dannert
Certain commonly prescribed anti-nausea medications given to patients during or after an operation could increase their risk of developing an irregular heartbeat, new research has found.
The precise number of adverse clinical events is difficult to ascertain. Several international studies estimate that medical errors happen in 3-5% of all hospital treatments and that around 30-50% of these could have been avoided. A hospital-acquired infection (HAI) is also considered a medical error. Report: Anja Behringer
Brain surgery is famously difficult for good reason: When removing a tumor, for example, neurosurgeons walk a tightrope as they try to take out as much of the cancer as possible while keeping crucial brain tissue intact — and visually distinguishing the two is often impossible. Now Johns Hopkins researchers report they have developed an imaging technology that could provide surgeons with a…
For all the advances being made in this discipline, postoperative infections remain a great challenge for orthopaedists and trauma surgeons. More than 7,000 experts from around the globe are gathering in Prague for the 16th EFORT Congress to consult on ways to optimise prevention and therapy for these dreaded complications.
Blocked blood vessels can quickly become dangerous. It is often necessary to replace a blood vessel – either by another vessel taken from the body or even by artificial vascular prostheses. Together, Vienna University of Technology and Vienna Medical University have developed artificial blood vessels made from a special elastomer material, which has excellent mechanical properties. Over time,…
Picture Archiving and Communications systems (PACS) are well established for managing radiology images. Could this robust and mature technology now become the backbone for creating the digital operating theatre? Report: John Brosky
In the future, TAVIs can only be carried out in German hospitals with cardiac surgery departments and cardiac wards, as decided by the German Government’s Expert Panel on Health (G-BA) last January. An interim arrangement in force until 2016 is anticipated for Heart Centres that currently carry out the TAVI procedure without cardiac surgery departments on site. The Federal Ministry of Health is…
NDS Surgical Imaging (NDSsi) designed a revolutionary visualization platform for operating rooms and minimally invasive suites to help surgeons see more, know more, and ultimately do more for their patients. The company released its highly anticipated 27" Radiance® Ultra, a next-generation surgical visualization platform boasting the brightest LED backlight in its class*. The ultra-high…
When a patient receives a new hip, it is usually adjusted only approximately to leg length. Greater accuracy requires a more precise measuring process as well as adjustable implants. Now, a new type of measurement method coupled with a modular implant should allow orthopedic surgeons to precisely calibrate leg length after the operation so it matches its original length.
‘There are still only 24 hours in a day – even for surgeons,’ said Professor Vogt MD during our interview. The Director of the clinic for plastic, hand and reconstructive surgery at Hanover Medical School and President of the DGCH (German Society of Surgery) is calling for solutions to the dilemma trainee surgeons face: undergoing high-quality specialist medical training while completing…
Surgeons at the University Hospitals Leuven have used a new technique for two recent liver transplants: in both cases the organ was preserved prior transplantation in a device that mimics the environment of that in the human body, making sure the liver stays ‘healthier’. The device can even assess and improve the quality of the liver.
