Clipmarks | ColoradoRight's 'medicine' clips

Finnish patient gets new jaw from own stem cells

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 17:34:40 GMT

clipped by: ColoradoRight
clipper's remarks: Yet another success for adult stem cells. Embryonic stem cells? still waiting on one single viable treatment.

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Scientists in Finland said they had replaced a 65-year-old patient's upper jaw with a bone transplant cultivated from stem cells isolated from his own fatty tissue and grown inside his abdomen.

Researchers said on Friday the breakthrough opened up new ways to treat severe tissue damage and made the prospect of custom-made living spares parts for humans a step closer to reality.

Using a patient's own stem cells provides a tailor-made transplant that the body should not reject.

Suuronen and her colleagues -- the project was run jointly with the Helsinki University Central Hospital -- isolated stem cells from the patient's fat and grew them for two weeks in a specially formulated nutritious soup that included the patient's own blood serum.

The patient's upper jaw had previously been removed due to a benign tumor and he was unable to eat or speak without the use of a removable prosthesis.

Tags: stem cells, transplant, medicine, abortion

Hilllarycare Preview 2155

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:20:19 GMT

clipped by: ColoradoRight
clipper's remarks: Mixed Sex Wards? Oh come on - there won't be any more private or semi-private hospital rooms. You will be on a ward and its going to be with whoever they want to stuff in there. Women and Men together? Its cost-effective. After all - the health care bureaucrats need their year-end bonuses.

And don't you just love the weaselly worded response from the Health Minister. Does it remind you of someone parsing the meaning of the word "is"?

Clip Source: blogs.telegraph.co.uk

Lord Darzi, the Health Minister, told the Lords yesterday: “The Government is committed to single sex accommodation, not single sex wards – they are two different things. The only way we are going to have single sex wards in the NHS is to build the whole of the NHS into single rooms (really?)…that is an aspiration that cannot be met.

“We used to have single sex wards 15 years ago but medicine has moved on.”

Note his words carefully. There is no mention of mixed sex wards – only “accommodation”. In other words, the Government is no longer committed to the provision of “single sex wards” but to “single sex accommodation”, a piece of fudging which means, in essence, that mixed sex wards will continue to exist

Tags: healthcare, uk, medicine, care

New Technology to Track Surgical Sponges

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 18:30:21 GMT

clipped by: ColoradoRight
clipper's remarks: The system, which is FDA approved, is being used in all of Loyola’s operating rooms, its labor and delivery rooms, interventional cardiology laboratories in which surgical procedures are performed and its ambulatory surgery sites. As the technology grows, Loyola plans to use it to keep track of all medical equipment used during a procedure.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Every year, in the United States about 1,500 people have surgical objects accidentally left inside them after surgery, according to medical studies.

This technology is very familiar to anyone who has ever used a grocery checkout system. Each sponge has a unique bar code affixed to it that is scanned by a high-tech device to obtain a count. Before a procedure begins, the identification number of the patient and the badge of the surgical team member maintaining the count are scanned into the counter. As an added safety feature, the bar code is heat sealed into the sponge to eliminate any danger of it becoming detached during a procedure.

The counter has a color screen that keeps a running count of the sponges used. It provides visual and audio cues when a sponge is scanned in, scanned out and if one is missing or is being counted twice. Because each bar code is unique, the system will not allow a sponge to be accidentally counted twice.

Tags: medicine, surgery, health, technology

New Scanner Provides 3D Images

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 16:22:41 GMT

clipped by: ColoradoRight
clipper's remarks: Again, just how many of these new machines will Queen by Divine Right of Marriage and Its My Turn Hillary and her universal healthcare bureaucrats approve? It would only benefit the rich, after all.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

A new scanner has been unveiled which can produce 3D body images of unprecedented clarity while reducing radiation by as much as 80%.

The new 256-slice CT machine takes large numbers of X-ray pictures, and combines them using computer technology to produce the final detailed images.

It also generates images in a fraction of the time of other scanners: a full body scan takes less than a minute.

Because the images are 3D they can be rotated and viewed from different directions - giving doctors the greatest possible help in looking for signs of abnormalities or disease.

The scan is much quicker than current technology, as the machine's X-ray emitting gantry - the giant ring-shaped part that surrounds the patient - can rotate four times in a single second - 22% faster than current systems.

"It is so powerful it can capture an image of the entire heart in just two beats."

Tags: medicine, ct scan, healthcare, technology, health

Tiny Ultrasonic Probe offers Panoramic View

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 17:42:58 GMT

clipped by: ColoradoRight

Clip Source: technology.newscientist.com

An ultrasound probe about the size of a grain of rice that could offer panoramic views from inside the human body is being tested by US researchers. They say it could be threaded through blood vessels in the brain or swallowed like a pill.

The new device – about 1 millimetre across, 1 millimetre long and shaped like a hexagonal cylinder – affords a panoramic picture, showing the view from each side of the device, and to the front.

The team has completed tests of the device in tanks of water, and plans to test it in animals, attached to the end of a wire-like endoscope.

If these tests prove successful, the hope is that it could offer doctors a much more complete picture of new locations inside the human body. "It could be used to measure blood flow deep inside the brain," says Chen, "to identify the early stages of strokes or other disease."

Tags: medicine, images, ultrasound, probes, healthcare

Hot Peppers - The Next Thing in Pain Control

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 17:24:04 GMT

clipped by: ColoradoRight
clipper's remarks: Lots of movement in lots of different areas with this chemical from hot peppers.

Clip Source: www.baltimoresun.com

Bite a hot pepper, and after the burn your tongue goes numb.

Doctors are dripping capsaicin, the chemical that gives chili peppers their fire, directly into open wounds during some highly painful operations.

The hope is that bathing surgically exposed nerves in a high enough dose will numb them for weeks, so that patients suffer less pain and require fewer narcotic painkillers as they heal.

"We wanted to exploit this numbness," is how Dr. Eske Aasvang, a pain specialist in Denmark who is testing the substance, puts it.

And at the National Institutes of Health, scientists hope early next year to begin testing in advanced cancer patients a capsaicin cousin that is 1,000 times more potent, to see whether it can overcome their intractable pain.

Harvard University researchers are mixing capsaicin with another anesthetic in hopes of developing epidurals that wouldn't confine women to bed during childbirth, or dental injections that don't numb the whole mouth.

Tags: medicine, surgery, pain, painkillers, cancer, dentistry, anesthetic

More "Tolerance" from Islam

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 21:44:31 GMT

clipped by: ColoradoRight
clipper's remarks: And just how long before the UK Physicians test bends to the will of the "tolerant" Muslims and allows this kind of idiocy to still produce "doctors"? I guess women are just not to be treated for any sort of diseases at all.

Clip Source: www.timesonline.co.uk

Some Muslim medical students are refusing to attend lectures or answer exam questions on alcohol-related or sexually transmitted diseases because they claim it offends their religious beliefs.

Some trainee doctors say learning to treat the diseases conflicts with their faith, which states that Muslims should not drink alcohol and rejects sexual promiscuity.

A small number of Muslim medical students have even refused to treat patients of the opposite sex. One male student was prepared to fail his final exams rather than carry out a basic examination of a female patient.

Tags: muslim, islam, medicine, doctor, physician, training

Deep Brain Stimulation - Depression Cure?

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 17:34:44 GMT

clipped by: ColoradoRight
clipper's remarks: The ability to dial up happiness on demand? Of course, this is a very limited experiement right now - but might have positive outcome for people with severe depression as well as Parkinsons.

Clip Source: www.popsci.com

Diane Hire [above] has two pacemaker-like power packs implanted under her collarbones. Each one pumps four volts of electricity through electrodes surgically implanted deep in her brain. Hire's psychiatrist uses a portable device to fine-tune the intensity and duration of the electrical pulses.

Deep-brain stimulation began as a treatment for movement disorders in the mid-1990s, and the surgery has been performed on more than 40,000 patients, most of them Parkinson's sufferers, since then.

Tags: medicine, technology, electronics, implants, brain, surgery

Skin-Derived Stem Cells Treat Spinal Injuries in Rats

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 18:06:06 GMT

clipped by: ColoradoRight
clipper's remarks: Giving hope for possible treatments for humans with spinal injuries. And this is yet another example of possible treatment from ADULT stem cells. Still nothing at all from embryonic stem cells.

Clip Source: www.thestar.com

A Toronto-led team of researchers has found a way to use stem cells derived from skin to treat spinal cord injuries in rats.

The finding lends promise to the idea that stem cells could one day be used to heal spinal cord injuries in humans, helping thousands of Canadians to walk again.

Over the course of their research, the team found that skin-derived stem cells share characteristics with embryonic neural stem cells, which generate the nervous system.

Before treatment, the injured rats had a cavity in their spinal cord, a result of their injury. But after treatment, Miller said the Schwann cells had created a bridge that spanned the cavity, and helped nerves grow through the bridge.

The next step is to see whether stem cells derived from human skin can produce similar results.

"We are highly encouraged," said Miller.

Tags: stem cells, medicine, treatment, health, spine

Grow Your Own Replacement Heart Valves

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 01:41:11 GMT

clipped by: ColoradoRight
clipper's remarks: Yet another advance for ADULT stem cells. We are still waiting on any viable treatment from embryonic stem cells.

Clip Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

Cardiac patients will soon be able to 'grow their own' heart valves and have them transplanted within weeks of seeing a doctor.

The groundbreaking treatment, developed by British surgeons, will create heart tissue from stem cells from the patient's body.

The technique offers hope to millions who suffer heart disease.

Scientists said the valves would not be rejected after a transplant because the tissue will have come from the patient and be genetically identical.

He added: "The ultimate goal is to produce an 'off the shelf' product which will not cause an immune response from patients. This should be possible in the next five to eight years."

Tags: stem cells, medicine, tranplants, heart

New Nanoparticles May Help Detect Disease

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 21:27:38 GMT

clipped by: ColoradoRight
clipper's remarks: The fact that its already at this level indicates that it could be implemented pretty quickly.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University researchers are the first to create a nanoparticle capable of detecting and imaging trace amounts of hydrogen peroxide in animals. The nanoparticles, thought to be completely nontoxic, could some day be used as a simple, all-purpose diagnostic tool to detect the earliest stages of any disease that involves chronic inflammation — everything from cancer and Alzheimer’s to heart disease and arthritis.

In the future, the nanoparticle would be injected by needle into a certain area of the body (for instance, the heart). If the nanoparticles encountered hydrogen peroxide, they would emit light. Should a doctor see a significant amount of light activity in the area, the doctor would know that the patient may be presenting early signs of a disease in that area of the body.

Tags: medicine, scanning, nanotechnology

Breathalyzer Can Detect Cancer, Heart Disease and Other Diseases

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:28:04 GMT

clipped by: ColoradoRight
clipper's remarks: The future of medicine is much less invasive processes for analysis and detection.

Clip Source: www.popularmechanics.com

A portable breath-testing device on display here at the DARPATech 2007 conference can supposedly detect a wide range of diseases, including breast cancer, by analyzing your breath.

The Breath Collecting Apparatus 5.0 (BCA) samples your breath over the course of two minutes, and analyzes it on-site for specific VOCs.

According to the device's maker, Menssana Research, the BCA has been able to detect breast cancer with the same accuracy as a mammogram. And initial findings have shown that the BCA detects pulmonary tuberculosis.

The BCA can also supposedly detect lung cancer, certain kind of heart disease and diabetes. And it's been approved by the FDA for clinical use in detecting heart transplant rejection.

It's not only cheaper than many equivalent diagnostics, but its far less daunting, which could mean significantly earlier detection

Tags: medicine, technology, hardware, analysis

Freedom

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 17:09:48 GMT

clipped by: ColoradoRight

Clip Source: patriotpost.us

“Freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp. Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor’s fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can’t socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he’ll eat you last.” —Ronald Reagan

Tags: freedom, politics, values

Stealing Copper the Hard Way

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 22:06:40 GMT

clipped by: ColoradoRight
clipper's remarks: We can only hope this happened before someone this stupid actually reproduced.

Clip Source: darwinawards.com

Brandon Reed, age 22 was removed from live power lines about 9 am this morning (according to my husband's eyewitness account as he drove by the site). These powerlines he had dangled from since electrocuting himself at around 3:am Monday the 16th of July, 2007, after attempting to steal copper wires. Copper theft is a big problem in these parts, with most wire being stolen from construction sites preparing for electrical work.

I can't recall anyone having the brilliant idea, at least around here, to steal it while power surged through it on a power pole...he must have thought he'd struck upon a brilliant idea, after all power poles go on for MILES with that stuff!

Brandon was in the news in Feb. for attempting to impersonate a policeman so he could search people's medicine cabinets for prescription drugs, namely OxyContin.

Tags: darwin, theft, copper, idiots

All Your Body Parts Are Belong To Us - UK Chief Dr

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 02:49:30 GMT

clipped by: ColoradoRight
clipper's remarks: Well, you pay taxes for your whole life so you can die early in a National Health Care hospital, why shouldn't they just assume they can take your body parts?

Clip Source: www.timesonline.co.uk

THE chief medical officer wants everyone to be treated as organ donors after death unless they explicitly opt out of the scheme.

Sir Liam Donaldson believes the shortage of kidneys, livers and hearts is so acute that the country needs a donation system that will presume patients have given consent for their body parts to be transplanted.

Such a fundamental change is likely to prove controversial as critics claim it gives the state new powers over people’s bodies. However, supporters of the change point out that hundreds of people die each year because of shortages of organs. More than 7,300 Britons are on the waiting list for a life-saving organ, a rise of about 30% over the past decade.

Tags: transplants, medicine, uk, health