WeirdMedical™

Who of us in the medical industry would have the guts to give a neurosurgeon permission to have our infant’s brain glued?

According to the authors – “It was just a few months before the parents noticed Joley’s head was growing rapidly and was unusually larger than [her twin's] Jared’s . Her mother could see the tiny veins in Joley’s head bulging out from her scalp.”

…But crazy glue worked!

Image of glue in Ella-Grace Honeymans brain

Got to love N-butyl-cyanoacrylate…read more at HealthMad.com…

Number ten in the Top 10 new tech advances of 2010 goes to an ancient material…

Implanted under the skin, an array of light-emitting diodes could signal the concentration in the blood of biomarkers such as insulin. Over time, the array will dissolve away, eliminating the need for surgery to remove the implant. Flexible silicon electronics (inset) are held in place with a silk film. Incorporating antibodies or enzymes into the film will allow devices to detect biomarkers. Credit: Bryan Christie Design. Source: MIT's Technology Review

According to MIT’s Technology Review, such “dissolvable devices make better medical implants.”

And what is that mysterious yet familiar bioabsorbable material for advanced implantable electronics­?

Silk!  It can be engineered to transmit images via light waves along its fibers, deliver drugs, measure vital signs or test blood, and can be resorbed over hours or as long as two years depending upon how long it is needed. And all from the belly of a worm? Amazing. For more amazing apps…read on.

Got silk?

If you are struggling for therapeutic relief from multiple sclerosis, you’ve got a lot of competition…

An new investigational procedure using an old “Gold Standard” technology is causing MS patients to apply in droves for a single site clinical trial. Over 1,000 patients applied for 3o positions at a lone study site in Buffalo, New York in its early trial. And the technology?…Is it a drug or an active agent?…no…it’s “POBA” –> Plain Old Balloon Angioplasty!

The theory of balloon angioplasty’s anticipated success in this new indication for use? This  provocative new theory proposes that abnormal blood drainage from the brain may cause or play a role in multiple sclerosis. According to early studies by an Italian vascular specialist, Dr. Paolo Zamboni, who was running out of treatment options for his wife, poor deoxygenated blood drainage caused by twisted, narrowed or blocked cerebrospinal veins may cause “leakage of immune cells into the brain that starts a cascade of inflammatory problems.” In this venous application, balloon angioplasty opens these vessels to increase the volume and rate of drainage…and patients can not wait to receive treatment.

“A lot of people are starting to go to fly-by-night places,” according to Dr. Carlo Tornatore at Washington’s Georgetown University Hospital. “It’s a marathon, not a 100-yard sprint. We have to be very careful.” (Source: Seattle PI, Seattle, WA)

The indication is chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency or CCSVI. Further studies of 65 patients by Dr. Zamboni reveal this therapy may be most effective in treating the relapsing-remitting form of MS. But there appears to be a significant relapse rate nearly 50%, similar to that for POBA for coronary arteries in the 1980′s and 1990′s.

Stay tuned…this opens a whole new opportunity for peripheral vascular device manufactures as well as their new MS patients!