Could Mesh Sutures Reduce Incisional Hernias

Incisional Hernias

Incisional hernias are among the most common complications of abdominal wall closures. A landmark study found that about 20% of patients developed an incisional hernia after a laparotomy (Chirurg2002;73:474-480). Failures of high-tension repairs may come down to the inability of sutures to reliably appose tissues. Even though modern sutures are sufficiently strong and resist breaking,…

Read More

Endoscope Maker Olympus Agrees To $646 Million Settlement Over Kickbacks

olympus

Medical device maker Olympus Corp., already under federal investigation for its role in superbug outbreaks, has agreed to pay $646 million to resolve criminal and civil probes into illegal kickbacks and bribes to doctors and hospitals. Federal prosecutors said Tuesday that the company’s settlement is the largest ever for violations of the U.S. Anti-Kickback Statute.…

Read More

Bariatric Surgery Safe, Effective for Lower-BMI Patients With Diabetes 

Bariatric Surgery

Los Angeles—It’s been a decades-long effort to have bariatric surgery accepted as a safe, effective treatment for people who are morbidly obese. Now, a new study presented at ObesityWeek 2015 suggests that bariatric procedures also should be considered a safe, effective treatment for people who have type 2 diabetes and are overweight or mildly obese.…

Read More

Diabetes exacerbates loss of gray matter, cognitive function in Parkinson’s patients

Parkinson’s

  Diabetes seems to hasten the loss of gray matter in the brains of Parkinson’s patients, and the effect is readily observable in the frontal lobes, where higher mental processes such as decision-making take place, according to a small study published online Feb. 10 in  Academic Radiology. Myria Petrou, MD, University of Michigan, and colleagues…

Read More

Radiology trainees tackle digital breast tomosynthesis

tomosynthesis

Errors from radiology trainees increase when interpreting digital breast tomosynthesis scans deemed to be difficult by expert imaging readers, according to results of a new study published online in the Journal of the American College of Radiology. Tomosynthesis continues to see increased adoption as a breast imaging modality due to its advantages over traditional mammography.…

Read More

Twitter Campaign Challenges Stereotypes

Twitter

In August 2015, Heather Logghe, MD, then a preliminary surgical resident at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), saw a tweet with the #ILookLikeAnEngineer hashtag—part of a Twitter campaign launched by female engineers to challenge the stereotype that their profession was only for white men. That night, Dr. Logghe sent out a…

Read More

Virtual Reality Is Coming to Medical Imaging

Virtual Reality

The medical-imaging industry is about to get a lot more “real.” New technologies coming to some hospitals and medical schools will allow doctors not only to see three-dimensional pictures produced by imaging equipment such as magnetic resonance imaging and ultrasound, but to interact with what is pictured—say, a heart or liver—as if it were real.…

Read More

Biotech & Medical Device Companies Make Significant Sales Growth Progress with Advanced Healthcare Products

Biotech

  Industry experts forecast continued growth for the biotech – healthcare products industry, especially for medical device market projected to reach new levels as innovative applications & technologies move sector forward.  Healthcare services and medical device product companies with recent developments of importance in the markets are PositiveID Corporation (OTC: PSID), Electromed, Inc. (NYSE: ELMD),…

Read More

Wenzel Spine Snags FDA Approval to Launch VariLift LX

wenzel spine

  Wenzel Spine, Inc. Announces FDA Clearance to Launch VariLift®-LX – The Next Generation Zero-Profile Stand-Alone Expandable Lumbar Interbody Fusion Device AUSTIN, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Wenzel Spine, Inc., a pioneer medical device company focused on providing minimally invasive, stand-alone alternatives to traditional spinal fusion, announced today that it received clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration…

Read More

Holoxica wins €1.3m to develop next-gen 3D medical displays

Holoxica

Holographic display developerHoloxica, has secured a €1.28 million grant award from the European Commission’s Horizon2020 “SME Instrument” investment program to develop a prototype 3D holographic video display aimed at medical scanners.The types of scanner that are the objective of the two-year program, which started in January, include CT, MRI or ultrasound systems, the relatively large…

Read More