CIMIT blog

Taking the Sting Out of Medical Tape — MIT News Office

MIT News Office (October 29, 2012) — Ripping off a Band-Aid may sting for a few seconds, but the pain is usually quickly forgotten. However, for newborns’ sensitive skin, tearing off any kind of adhesive can pose a serious risk.

Newborns lack an epidermis — the tough outermost layer of skin — so medical tape used to secure respirators or monitoring devices critical for the survival of premature babies can wreak havoc: Every year, more than 1.5 million people suffer scarring and skin irritation from medical tape, and the majority of those are infants or elderly people, who also have fragile skin.

“This is just a huge unmet need,” says Jeffrey Karp, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-director of the Center for Regenerative Therapeutics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Bryan Laulicht, a postdoc in MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, and MIT Institute Professor Robert Langer have now joined Karp in developing a new type of medical tape that can be removed without damaging delicate skin. The new tape could be produced by adapting current adhesive-manufacturing systems, according to the researchers.

Although originally designed for infants, the tape could also be useful for elderly patients. The new adhesive is described this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers have filed for a patent on the new tape and are now working to secure regulatory approval for safety tests on human adults.

Read full story at web.mit.edu >>

Medical Devices Powered by the Ear Itself — MIT News Office

MIT News Office (November 7, 2012) — Deep in the inner ear of mammals is a natural battery — a chamber filled with ions that produces an electrical potential to drive neural signals. In today’s issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology, a team of researchers from MIT, the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary (MEEI) and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) demonstrate for the first time that this battery could power implantable electronic devices without impairing hearing.

The devices could monitor biological activity in the ears of people with hearing or balance impairments, or responses to therapies. Eventually, they might even deliver therapies themselves.

The work was funded in part by the Focus Center Research Program, the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, and the Bertarelli Foundation.

Read full story at web.mit.edu >>

Mobile Devices 'On Call' in Hospitals

nytimes.com/science (October 8, 2012) — At hospitals around the country, mobile devices, including smartphones and tablet computers, are becoming critical to efficient and precise patient care.

View original post at http://video.nytimes.com/video/2012/10/08/health/100000001824071/mobile-devices-on-call-in-hospitals.html?smid=tw-nytimesscience&seid=auto >>

Automatic Building Mapping Could Help Emergency Responders: A prototype sensor array that can be worn on the chest automatically maps the wearer’s environment, recognizing movement between floors

MIT News Office (September 24, 2012) — MIT researchers have built a wearable sensor system that automatically creates a digital map of the environment through which the wearer is moving. The prototype system, described in a paper slated for the Intelligent Robots and Systems conference in Portugal next month, is envisioned as a tool to help emergency responders coordinate disaster response.



In experiments conducted on the MIT campus, a graduate student wearing the sensor system wandered the halls, and the sensors wirelessly relayed data to a laptop in a distant conference room. Observers in the conference room were able to track the student’s progress on a map that sprang into being as he moved.

Connected to the array of sensors is a handheld pushbutton device that the wearer can use to annotate the map. In the prototype system, depressing the button simply designates a particular location as a point of interest. But the researchers envision that emergency responders could use a similar system to add voice or text tags to the map — indicating, say, structural damage or a toxic spill.

Read full story at http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/automatic-building-mapping-0924.html >>

3-D Medical Scanner: New Handheld Imaging Device to Aid Doctors On the 'Diagnostic Front Lines'

science.com (October 2, 2012) — In the operating room, surgeons can see inside the human body in real time using advanced imaging techniques, but primary care physicians, the people who are on the front lines of diagnosing illnesses, haven't commonly had access to the same technology -- until now.

Engineers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) have created a new imaging tool for primary care physicians: a handheld scanner that would enable them to image all the sites they commonly examine, and more, such as bacterial colonies in the middle ear in 3-D, or monitor the thickness and health of patients' retinas. The device relies on optical coherence tomography (OCT), a visualization technology that is similar to ultrasound imaging, but uses light instead of sound to produce the images.

Read full story at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121002150035.htm >>

Scientists Make Tiny Medical Devices That Dissolve in Mice

cbsnews.com (September 27, 2012) — As consumers we want our electronic gadgets to be durable. But as patients, we might want them to dissolve - inside our bodies.

Scientists reported Thursday that they succeeded in creating tiny medical devices sealed in silk cocoons that did the work they were designed for, then dissolved in the bodies of lab mice. It's an early step in a technology that may hold promise, not only for medicine, but also for disposal of electronic waste.

The new work is "a remarkable achievement" in combining materials to produce a working device, said Christopher Bettinger of Carnegie Mellon University. He works on biodegradable electronics but was not involved in the study.

Doctors already use implants that dispense drugs or provide electrical stimulation, but they don't dissolve. The new work is aimed at making devices that do their jobs as long as needed and then just dissolved, without need for surgical removal or risk of long-term side effects.

Read full story at http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57521928/scientists-make-tiny-medical-devices-that-dissolve-in-mice/?tag=socsh >>

FDA Approves First Subcutaneous Heart Defibrillator

fda.gov (September 28, 2012) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved a heart defibrillator that helps to restore regular heart rhythms with leads that can be implanted just under the skin (subcutaneously) instead of connected directly into the heart.

An implantable defibrillator is a small battery-powered device that constantly monitors a person’s heart rhythm and can deliver a therapeutic dose of electricity to restore the rhythm when it senses the heart is beating dangerously fast (tachycardia) or chaotically (sudden cardiac arrest).

Other implantable defibrillators on the market require a physician to insert one or more electrical conductor wires, called “leads,” into a vein in the upper chest and guide them into the patient’s heart. X-ray fluoroscopy, a real-time imaging method, helps the physician to visualize the heart and blood vessels to guide the leads to the correct position.

The Subcutaneous Implantable Defibrillator (S-ICD) System uses a lead that is implanted just under the skin along the bottom of the rib cage and breast bone. Because the lead is placed under the skin rather than through a vein into the heart, a physician can implant the device without accessing a patient’s blood vessels or heart and without the need for fluoroscopy.

“The S-ICD System provides an alternative for treating patients with life-threatening heart arrhythmias for whom the routine ICD placement procedure is not ideal,” said Christy Foreman, director of the Office of Device Evaluation at FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health. “Some patients with anatomy that makes it challenging to place one of the implantable defibrillators currently on the market may especially benefit from this device.”

The S-ICD System is approved to provide an electric shock to the heart (defibrillation) when the patient’s heart is beating at a dangerous level or abnormally fast (ventricular tachyarrhythmias). It is approved only for patients who do not require a pacemaker or pacing therapy.

Read full story at http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm321755.htm >>

Recommendations from mHealth Task Force: Accelerating the adoption and use of mobile healthcare technologies

Monday, September 24, 2012
2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

WATCH LIVE NOW >>

Earlier this year, the FCC convened a summit with industry leaders to discuss opportunities to accelerate the adoption and use of mobile health care technologies. Since then, participants have formed the “mHealth Task Force” to develop recommendations for industry and government action to harness the potential of mobile devices to improve health outcomes and lower costs of care.

Join ITIF for a panel discussion about the mHealth Task Force, their findings and recommendations. The Task Force, led by Co-chairs Julian Goldman, Robert Jarrin and Douglas Trauner will detail the work performed by the Task Force to identify barriers and opportunities related to mobile health, wireless health and e-Care technologies. They will address how the FCC plays a vital role in helping to change America’s healthcare system through access to broadband while enabling the adoption and proliferation of mHealth. The Co-chairs will discuss the Final Recommendations by the Task Force and how the FCC should continue to play a leadership role to promote innovation, avoid regulatory duplication and build upon existing programs to expand broadband access for healthcare while supporting RF safety, reliability and interoperability of mHealth Technologies. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will deliver opening remarks and the three Co-chairs will serve on a panel moderated by Rob Atkinson.

Download the findings and recommendations (PDF) >>

PANEL PARTICIPANTS:

Julius Genachowski VIEW BIO Chairman, Federal Communications Commission Presenter

Julian Goldman VIEW BIO | VIEW PRESENTATION Medical Director of Biomedical Engineering, Partners Healthcare System Presenter

Robert Jarrin VIEW BIO | VIEW PRESENTATION Senior Director of Government Affairs, Qualcomm Presenter

Douglas Trauner VIEW BIO | VIEW PRESENTATION CEO, Health Analytic Services, Inc (TheCarrot.com) Presenter

Robert D. Atkinson VIEW BIO President,Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Moderator

Laser Injection Less Painful Than Needles

bbc.co.uk (September 14, 2012) — A laser device for less painful injections has been developed by South Korean scientists.

The system could replace traditional needles, with a jab as painless as being hit with a puff of air.

The laser is already used in aesthetic skin treatments. The aim now is to make low-cost injectors for clinical use.

A team from Seoul National University in South Korea describe the process in the Optical Society's journal Optics Letters.

The researchers write that the laser, called erbium-doped yttrium aluminium garnet, or Er:YAG, propels a stream of medicine with the right force to almost painlessly enter the skin.

The jet is slightly larger than the width of a human hair and can reach the speed of 30m (100ft) per second.

"The impacting jet pressure is higher than the skin tensile strength and thus causes the jet to smoothly penetrate into the targeted depth underneath the skin, without any splashback of the drug," said Prof Jack Yoh of Seoul National University, who led the study.

Piston-like injectors are already in use, but jet strength and drug dose are more difficult to control.

"The laser-driven microjet injector can precisely control dose and the depth of drug penetration underneath the skin," said Prof Yoh.

The scientists have tested the laser on guinea pigs, injecting the drug up to several millimetres beneath the skin without any damage to the tissue, and are starting work on injectors for clinical use.

View original story at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19600706#?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter.

Building Cyborg Tissues: Bioengineering meets nanoelectronics

vectorblog.org (August 30, 2012) — A biomaterials researcher at Boston Children’s Hospital’s and collaborators at Harvard and MIT have built, in essence, cyborg tissues. Imagine, for instance, bioengineered cyborg blood vessels that could sense glucose levels and activate an implanted insulin pump, or nanoscale pacemakers coupled to nanoscale defibrillators within artificial heart tissue.

Read full story on vectorblog.org >>