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© 2011, 2012 Health Futures Digest
Here’s our weekly summary of tweets from @hfdigest, and their significance. Aging We have known for some time that adult stem cells age, as do all our cells. But until recently we did not know we can rejuvenate them—in the petri dish, anyway. This extraordinary breakthrough could make us younger, and not merely stop growing […]
Recognizing that even the best physicians are out of their depth in dealing with the vast quantities of data generated by modern medical tests and devices, MIT researchers are moving post-modern medicine toward the inevitable: Diagnosis and treatment by machine. There’s no question that machines are getting better at it all the time. A device […]
The proliferation of 7-Tesla MRI scanners for research is putting pressure on their adoption for clinical (diagnostic) purposes as well. Already, the US Food and Drug Administration has categorized MRI up to 8T as not a significant health risk, and a clinical trial of a 7T MRI to detect amyloid plaques in Alzheimer’s patients is […]
Software that provides a reliable second opinion to a radiologist reading mammograms could cut short the young practice of sending scans abroad to be read by cheaper radiologists in India and elsewhere. Given the accelerating trend to more powerful processors and more intelligent software, we predict it will not be long before the software will […]
Several variations on the Star Trek non-invasive, handheld, diagnostic “tricorder” theme have been reported in past issues (and we’ve just mentioned another, in the Devices section). Here’s another version anyone can use — doctor not needed. For the moment, however, doctors will be needed to use nanowire arrays developed at Harvard to detect a cancer […]
7 tesla MRI at Vanderbilt; Faster Lab-on-a-Chip; Holodiagnosis; Laser Cancer Detector; Physiome Project; X-Ray Laser 7 tesla MRI at Vanderbilt www.tennessean.com/education/archives/05/01/66118686.shtml?Element_ID=66118686 Vanderbilt University is acquiring a 7-tesla MRI. The magnet costs about US$7 million and the building to house it US$19.7million. It will be used on laboratory animals, primarily in brain research aimed at analyzing […]
Imaging down to the molecular and even the atomic level has been much in the news lately. For instance, a new MRI can detect atoms of various elements in the brain. It will help in the early diagnosis of brain disorders and in measuring the effect of drugs used to treat the conditions. There’s also […]
A new technology to count cancer cells in the bloodstream gives earlier warning of metastasis and enables treatment regimens to be more effectively monitored and modified to fit the individual patient�s condition. Such tailoring to suit the individual has taken a significant step foreward with the development of a genetics-based test for cancer patients� individual […]
We reported last month that Swedish researchers have confirmed in animal experiments the theory that mitochondrial mutations are one of the causes of age-related illnesses. The discovery of genetic mutations in mitochondrial DNA responsible for Alzheimer’s would seem to further support the theory. Nearly 18 months behind Europe, the US FDA has approved a software […]
Imaging continues to make great strides: fMRI is being successfully applied to the understanding and diagnosis of sexual dysfunction. Scanning for the presence of cancer in a patient is about to become more accurate and sensitive, and probably cheaper, than current screening methods. A new imaging technique will also greatly improve the sensitivity of non-invasive […]