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The Future of Medical Visualisation
Medical visualisation is the use of computers to create 3D images from medical imaging data sets. It's a relatively young field of science, relying heavily on advances in computing for its horsepower. Despite its youth, these techniques have revolutionised medicine. Much of modern medicine relies on the 3D imaging that is possible with magnetic resonance imaging scanners and computed tomography (CT) scanners, which make 3D images out of 2D slices. Almost all surgery and cancer treatment in the developed world relies on it. So an interesting question is where medical visualisation will take us next.
Prosthetics of the Future: Driven by Thoughts
These days, the most advanced robotics prothetics take their commands from the brain. And pretty soon, they may be drawing their power from juices in the brain. Cerebrospinal fluid, that is. Electrical engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are developing a novel platinum-coated fuel cell that runs off the glucose found in bodily fluids. Their specific aim is to implant the fuel cells in liquid pockets of the brain and use them to run low powered components in a neural prosthetic.
Building an organ on a Chip
Microscale devices that mimic human organs could provide a much more realistic environment for drug discovery. Cells grown on the Wyss Institute's organ-on-chip devices behave more like cells in the body. The devices could improve the speed and success of drug discovery and reduce animal testing. The Wyss Institute's first organ was a breathing lung on a microchip.
Telemedicine Takes a Step With Robotic Heart Surgery
Australian heart doctors recently performed heart surgery on a patient that was not even in the same room. Physicians in Adelaide used a robotic surgery device to treat patients with atrial fibrillation. Doctors advanced a robotic surgical arm holding a special catheter through the patients’ blood vessels until it reached the desired target deep within the chest. The device delivered a pulse of radio frequency energy as directed by heart doctors sitting in the next room over, watching the process on monitors.
Robotic Catheter to Reduce Trauma To Blood Vessel
Hansen Medical has introduced a new flexible Robotic Catheter System which combines advanced levels of 3D catheter control and 3D visualization to obtain highest precision in placement of catheter inside the blood vessels during complex cardiac catheterization procedures.
Researchers create the First Pulseless Artificial Heart
Checking a person’s pulse is often the first thing you do to see if they’re still alive. But a new artificial heart, developed this past spring, will complicate this common diagnosis: Researchers at the Texas Heart Institute have now created a fully functioning artificial heart that uses rotors to circulate blood instead of contractions, like a natural heart.