Health hot news

This week at the annual conference of the American Academy of Neurological Surgeons (AANS), the Navigation and Intra-Operative Imaging division at Medtronic (NYSE: MDT) unveiled the latest in neurosciences surgical solutions, the StealthStation® S7TM system. The StealthStation S7 offers personalized navigation support for surgeon and surgical staff, with superior visualization and information display capabilities as well as streamlined workflow options.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared for marketing a device that a doctor can use to see inside a blood vessel to assess the fat content of the plaque which builds up on the wall of the coronary arteries. Plaque is a deposit made up of cholesterol-rich fat, calcium, and other substances found in the blood. As plaque accumulates on the artery wall, it reduces blood flow to the heart muscle and increases the risk of blood clots which can lead to a heart attack.

A novel, three-dimensional (3-D) screening method for analyzing interactions between cells and new biomaterials could cut initial search times by more than half, researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Rutgers University report in the new issue of Advanced Materials.

Researchers at the USC Information Sciences Institute have demonstrated a way to manufacture miniscule containers that might be used to deliver precise micro- or even nano- quantities of drugs. According to ISI project leader Peter Will, who is a research professor in the Viterbi School of Engineering, the new technique, described in a paper in the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, is a two-step process.

May is Hypertension Awareness Month, and a new device in high blood pressure clinical trials is showing promise for treating U.S. hypertension (high blood pressure) patients whose condition is not controlled by drugs. Rheos® Hypertension (HT) Therapy is an implantable device designed to lower high blood pressure - the number one risk factor for stroke, heart and kidney disease.

A new, free white paper titled “Effectively Culturing Anaerobic Bacteria” is now available from Spiral Biotech, Inc. at: http://www.aicompanies.com/anoxomat. The white paper details new techniques for isolating and identifying anaerobic bacteria in organisms.

Cardica, Inc. (Nasdaq: CRDC) announced that the PAS-Port(R) Proximal Anastomosis System achieved its primary endpoint in a large, prospective, randomized pivotal clinical trial comparing graft vessel connections made using the PAS-Port system to conventional hand-sewn sutures during coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) procedures. Based on the positive data from the trial, Cardica submitted a 510(k) premarket notification to the U.S.

An article published in the open-access journal PLoS Onedescribes a new technique that uses cell phones for medical imagingpurposes. According to the authors, the new technology, developed byengineers at the University of California, Berkeley, couldimprovethe accessibility of medical imaging to billions of people aroundthe world.

Background Bone mineral density influences the risk of osteoporosis later in life and is useful in the evaluation of the risk of fracture. We aimed to identify sequence variants associated …

(No abstract is available for this citation)