Scientists are using new imaging technology to help them perform “virtual biopsies,” ? biological profiles of specific tumors that may help predict a patient’s response to treatment and probability of long-term survival. This whole new realm of imaging is called functional MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), a process that offers insight into a tumor’s character, not just its superficial structure.
In an operating room in Carle Hospital in Urbana, Ill., on May 7, as scientists from the University of Illinois (UI) and Sandia National Laboratories watched, surgeon Michael Goldwasser fitted a highly unusual ceramic prosthetic device into the mouth of an elderly woman who had lost most of her teeth and along with it, much of the bone of her lower jaw.
Researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, its Doheny Retina Institute and Second Sight, LLC, are reporting on the initial results of their groundbreaking, FDA-approved feasibility trial of an intraocular retinal prosthesis that appears to be able to restore some degree of sight to the blind.
“We have successfully completed enrollment and implantation of three patients in the trial,” says Mark Humayun, M.D., professor of ophthalmology at the Keck School. “And we have found that the devices are indeed electrically conducting, and can be used by the patients to detect light or even to distinguish between objects such as a cup or plate in forced choice tests conducted with one patient so far.”
Radiofrequency ablation can ease pain, slow tumor growth, and even destroy tumors in patients with advanced lung cancer, a new study shows. ?We treated 12 patients with thoracic tumors using radiofreqency ablation, which is the use of extreme heat to treat tumors,? says Eric vanSonnenberg, MD, chief of radiology at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and visiting professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston, and lead author of the study. The patients either had maximal applications of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy or were unfit for these therapies anymore, Dr. vanSonnenberg says.
Diffusion-weighted MR imaging is an accurate way to detect whether a patient has had a stroke–even 24 hours after the patient’s initial symptoms began, a new study shows. The study, the largest of its kind, found that diffusion-weighted MR imaging was about 90 percent accurate in diagnosing stroke, says Mark Mullins, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Mullins was the lead author of the study. Diffusion-weighted MR imaging was 91% accurate if the test was done 0-6 hours after the patient first began having symptoms; accuracy was 89% at 6-12 hours, then 90% at 12-24 hours, says Dr. Mullins.
A new capsule that contains a microscopic camera and transmitter can create better pictures of the small bowel than standard x-ray procedures can, a new study shows. The capsule is easily swallowed by the patient, and there is no need for the patient to drink barium before the procedure.
A new non-invasive therapy for liver cancer patients who cannot be helped by surgery or organ transplantation is being evaluated by researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine. The Phase I clinical trial at the IU Cancer Center uses extracranial stereotactic radioablation (SRA) as a potential new treatment for hepatocelluar carcinoma, a cancer that originates in the liver, or for liver metastasis from other sites.
Anxiety is often poorly managed in patients recovering from a heart attack, new research reports. While medical records revealed that nearly three-quarters of 101 patients in the study had received some sort of treatment for anxiety, symptoms of anxiety were documented on less than half of the patients’ charts. “Some of these people were treated for anxiety even though there was nothing in their chart to suggest they were anxious to begin with,” said Susan Frazier, the lead author of the study, which appears in a recent issue of the journal Heart and Lung. Frazier is an associate professor of nursing at Ohio State University.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality launched a monthly peer-reviewed, Web-based medical journal that showcases patient safety lessons drawn from actual cases of medical errors. Called AHRQ WebM&M (Morbidity and Mortality Rounds on the Web), the Web-based journal (http://webmm.ahrq.gov) was developed to educate health care providers about medical errors in a blame-free environment. In hospitals across the country, clinicians routinely hold Morbidity and Mortality (M&M) conferences to discuss specific cases that raise issues regarding medical errors and quality improvement. Until now, there has been no comparable national or international forum to discuss and learn from medical errors.
Performing intracranial angioplasty on an awake patient allows patients to report unusual symptoms, which lets physicians immediately alter their work to minimize the risk of major complications, according to a preliminary study. In the study, the procedure ? called intracranial (within the skull) angioplasty ? was safely performed on 10 patients who were given local anesthesia with mild sedation, rather than the general anesthesia that is traditionally administered. Local anesthesia is injected near the access area to block pain impulses; general anesthesia induces a complete loss of consciousness.