A tiny nanoscale device can accurately measure a patient’s blood for methotrexate – a commonly used but potentially toxic cancer drug – in under 60 seconds, according to biomedical instrument designer Jean-François Masson, and Joelle Pelletier, a DHFR enzyme specialist, both at the Chemistry Department, University of Montreal.
The Ebola epidemic in West Africa, war in Syria, typhoon in the Philippines – over and over, German doctors are among those deployed to help. We interviewed Dr Johannes Schad, Medical Director of the Foundation of the German Institute for Disaster Medicine, about his direct experiences on the ground at the worst of times. Interview: Sascha Keutel
Back in 1938, the precision machinist and innovator Hans Rudolph created what is possibly the first respiratory valve specifically for human/animal pulmonary studies.
Research being conducted in the United Kingdom is focusing on techniques to help improve the weaning process for patients coming off mechanical ventilation in hospital intensive care units. Report: Mark Nicholls
The new surgical lighting,
IPS1000A, a video management system from FSN Medical Technologies, aims to help operating theatre (OT) staff to spend less time on the complexities of video use. This system provides popular OT integration capability such as source selection, advanced windowing features, easy switching, and PIP/PBP mode, the manufacturer reports.
The Starled3 NX is suitable for many applications in the operating theatre and diagnoses in, for example, gynaecology, dermatology and general medicine.
Is chlorhexidine still the best decolonisation method? For many decades decolonisation – be it selective intestinal, oral or skin decolonisation – has been the accepted procedure to prevent infections by endogenous bacteria. Report: Brigitte Dinkloh
Critically ill children hospitalised with traumatic injuries have a high risk of acquiring nosocomial infections, especially if their immune function is impaired. A nosocomial infection, such as sepsis, can become as deadly as a traumatic injury, the leading cause of death in children. Report: Cynthia E Keen
Poor logistics logistics and low trained staff numbers are two of the greatest limitations to providing a sufficient molecular diagnostic capacity for Ebola in West Africa, says Andrew S. Thompson, Ph.D., GlobalData’s Senior Analyst.
In uncomplicated stable angina cases no evidence suggests that angioplasty reduces heart attacks or death risks, Mark Nicholls reports
Radiotherapy is being proposed to treat heart diseases, specifically for hypertension and atrial fibrillation (AF).
Evidence is scant on the cooling of comatose patients who have suffered cardiac arrest, stroke or traumatic brain injuries; nevertheless, new methods for cooling patients are continuously being developed.
ECMO's role in a world's first cardiac procedure: Cardiac specialists in the UK have performed a world’s first operation on a 14-year-old boy suffering a severe heart condition. Mark Nicholls reports.
Whether mechanical, temporary cardiac assist systems should pulsate in the same way as a biological heart is a discussion topic, which raises the pulse rates amongst all those involved within the industry and in hospitals.
Clinicians and companies remain committed to a procedure that failed to demonstrate efficacy against a sham-control group in pivotal clinical trial
A cardiac surgeon, Wolfgang Goetz MD once stitched together custom aortic valves in the operating room. Today he is CEO of Transcatheter Technologies in Regensburg.
A hospital with a reputation for trailblazing heart surgery has taken transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) onto the next step in the UK.
A transplant team at a Birmingham hospital has achieved a world first after resuscitating a liver that would have previously been considered unviable.
This summer the world’s first implantations of Biotronik’s new ICD and CRT-D series (implantable cardioverter-defibrillators and cardiac resynchronisation therapy defibrillators) took place at the Spedali Civili Hospital, Brescia, Italy.
Recently, ways to improve trauma care, particularly the care of acutely injured victims of traffic accidents, was discussed by international experts gathered at the World Trauma Congress (held in Frankfurt/Main, Germany).
There is room for worldwide improvement of trauma care, as Congress President Professor Ingo Marzi, Frankfurt/Main (Germany), emphasised.
Ten recommendations drawn up to improve care of the dying in the United Kingdom, will provide data to help hospitals to identify good and poor practice and to make changes to enhance learning in this care area.
A receptionist threatened with a butcher’s knife in Bourgoin-Jallieu (Isère); gunshots in an emergency unit in Delafontaine, at Saint-Denis, near Paris; a nurse wounded with a knife in a Marseille hospital – three separate incidents in just one week last August brought into sharpe focus what has become a worrying phenomenon.
Some time this year, exact date unknown, Google Glass – a miniature computer attached to a pair of glasses – is expected to make its consumer debut.