Treatment • healthcare-in-europe.com

Transplants under silent attack

The number of patients treated with implants – from cardiac pacemakers, heart valves and vascular implants to artificial hips and knees – is rising worldwide.

Breathing new life into ventilator control

To deliver the next step forward in mechanical ventilation, Jens Viebke, CEO of the Maquet-Getinge Group, decided to take a step backwards by first talking with the people who would be using the system.

Distinguished by precision and accuracy

We are very pleased to introduce our new Exercise Stress Test System CARDIOVIT CS-200 Touch which can perform multiple clinical tests: 12-/16-channel resting and exercise ECG, Holter ECG and 24h ABPM.

Efficient and compact mechanical Cardiopulmonary resuscitation

Performing manual chest compressions well for an extended period of time is almost impossible.

Preventing sporting deaths

Football authorities across the world have been urged to adopt a universal standard of emergency care to help cut the potential for serious injury or death during matches.

The next generation LEDs

Starled3 NX, a lamp manufactured by the ACEM Medical Company, is based on the next generation LED technology, assuring cold light, long life and low energy consumption, the Italian company reports.

DIEP flap reconstruction

In France, every year 15,000 women undergo complete or partial mastectomy due to breast cancer. Only about a third of them, i.e. around 5,000 patients, use the possibilities reconstructive surgery offers and 70 percent of those women opt for an implant although it is associated with a risk of infection because the body might react negatively to the foreign object.

Blood pressure monitors

Specialising in BP monitors, Omron Healthcare BV of Hoofddorp, the Netherlands, is extending portfolio with two new designs for medical professionals.

Bootcare by Telemedicine

Mobile healthcare is a major buzzword nowadays: take the devices and the data to the patient, not the other way round. Mobility in this concept is not restricted to the hospital where devices and data flow freely from department to department, but encompasses follow-up care at home. Report: Anja Behringer

Endovascular thrombolysis

Neurologists keenly debate the value of mechanical reopening of blocked blood vessels in the brain, as demonstrated during the 21st World Congress for Neurology (WCN) in Vienna this September. Theoretically, endovascular thrombolysis can only be considered for 20-30% of all incidents of stroke.

Decubitus ulcers

After acknowledging that too many patients were developing hospital-acquired decubitus ulcers (also known as pressure ulcers or bedsores), staff at England’s Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust adopted a zero tolerance approach and prioritised action against bedsore development, which has resulted in a dramatic decrease in cases.

The fall and rise of cardiac surgery innovations

Grandly announced, the da Vinci became the must-have of any self-respecting cardiac surgeon, only to sink into obscurity as quickly as it had risen to stardom. Once the wunderkind of robotic surgery, today this surgical system is merely collecting dust on many a hospital cupboard. A whole slew of methods and technologies were launched with varied fanfares over the past ten years. European…

Simplified documentation results in improved therapy

A large proportion of the patients treated at the Asklepios Schlossberg Clinic are intensive care patients. To track the medical treatment and nursing support which is carried out, an immense amount of documentation is produced.

Finally surgeons can look beneath the surface

Use of ultrasound for guidance is gaining ground, researchers explained during the 4th IPCAI, the International Conference on Information Processing in Computer-Assisted Interventions held during CARS 2013 in Heidelberg.

Heart failure

About 500,000 people in France people suffer heart failure (HF). In Europe the figure is six million and the same in the USA.

Article • Healing hearts 1

Bioresorbable stents

Cardiologists believe they can restore coronary arteries thanks to a new generation of stents that help the body to strengthen collapsed vessels. Elsewhere, patients’ own stem cells are being programmed to rebuild cardiac muscle in HF patients.

TAVI will surpass heart surgery for aortic valve replacement

Each year the case grows stronger for transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVI). And it is only six years since the procedure was introduced in Europe.

The 33rd German Society for Senology Congress

Like any other cancer – breast cancer is a highly individual disease, shaped by many factors such as age, health status or genetics. Due to the complex web of molecular pathological processes and resistance mechanisms it is very difficult to select the most effective therapy for each patient.

Risks from cold and dry gas insufflation become history

Modern laparoscopy, the technique of looking inside the abdominal cavity, is a major medical innovation driven initially by physicians from Germany as well as by Swedes and Americans.

Natural orifice translumenal endoscopic surgery

A record 1,700 participants from 84 countries confirmed the dimension and international importance of the European Association of Endoscopic Surgery Congress held recently in Vienna, where Hans-Christian Pruszsinsky caught up with Congress President Professor Selman Uranüs, Head of the Section for Surgical Research, Medical University of Graz, for our interview.