Category: Medical Tech

A collaboration between researchers at the University of British Columbia and Paul Scherrer Institut in Switzerland has developed a microneedle device for drug monitoring. The device is in a form of a patch that’s stuck onto the skin, painlessly pushing microneedles through to sample the interstitial fluid. A number of microneedle patches already exist, but those have been developed for delivering drugs and vaccines, not sampling the body for their presence. The proof-of-concept device reported by the team was used to measure the concentration of vancomycin, an antibiotic that usually requires…

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The FDA has just approved the AspireAssist device from AspireBariatrics which, when we first learned of it, seemed like a joke. Alas, what looked like a high tech way of enabling bulimia has proven itself effective for weight loss in obese patients. Simply put, the AspireAssist provides a channel for stomach contents to be emptied before the nutrients are absorbed further down in the GI system. A tube is placed within the stomach that connects to a port on the belly. About twenty minutes after ingesting food the patient connects an external component that includes a…

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Infrared, ultraviolet, and visible light are commonly used to visualize tissues in a variety of ways, but the light is typically not coherent, poorly focused, and not very bright. Researchers at the University of Michigan have been working on a way of getting blood to act like a laser, revealing medically relevant information from within the body. Recently presented at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics in San Jose, California, the research involved using indocyanine green dye that cardiologists, ophthalmologists, and other doctors are well familiar with. The dye was…

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Penumbra, a big name in ischemic stroke clot removal, is announcing the release of its new ACE68 Reperfusion Catheter. The company calls it its most advanced thrombectomy device, offering advanced tracking capabilities, flexibility to move through challenging vasculature, and a large lumen to grab as much of the clot as possible. The device is used along with the Penumbra System that provides the sucking power to pull on the occlusion creating the stroke. Thanks to the large lumen, the ACE68 Reperfusion Catheter can take advantage of the full available power of the Penumbra…

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