| Stem Cell Therapy: The Holy Grail of Medicine
Stem cell therapy is the new buzz in medical corridors with 'miracle' cures being reported everyday. Nancy Singh analyses the promises it holds for various diseases and the growing market for it. Four-month-old Aarohi Bhatt recently created medical history for being cured of a rare heart condition believed to be untreatable. The cause of her cureĀStem Cell Therapy (SCT) using her father's blood at Frontier Lifeline Hospital, Chennai. Besides being a difficult surgery, it was for the first time in the world that SCT was successfully done on a child so young. Stem cell therapy is said to be expensive, however, considering that the effects of treatment are long lasting, without requiring expensive repetitive treatment, this seems affordable. Frost & Sullivan estimates that the annual cost of $2,500 per patient for SCT, at the manufacturer's level, is an average cost distributed over several years.
Keys to success with surface ablation
Durrie, MD Surface ablation is becoming an effective refractive surgery option. Papers presented at the 2006 annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) and the 2006 annual meeting of the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons showed that the number of surface ablations performed is gradually increasing (Figure). Now that surface ablation is gaining popularity, questions are being raised about the best way to perform the procedure. Performing surface ablations .
U of C unveils robo-surgeon
Using technology from the space shuttle's Canadarm, Calgary researchers have developed the world's first neurosurgery robot. Its pinpoint precision will dramatically improve the lot of patients, said the robot's prime developer, Calgary neurosurgeon Garnette Sutherland. "Robotics will ensure a higher quality of life, it will maximize surgical objectives and make hospital stays shorter," he said. Poised over a patient's brain, the device's tool-grasping fingers boast a sense of touch. Magnetic resonance imagery allows the physician guiding the robot, by manipulating a set of controls, to view the entire brain rather than just the immediate surgical area. "For instance, we'll know the pressure exerted on a blood vessel before it breaks," said Sutherland.
ForSight Labs, LLC Announces New CEO Appointment and the Series A ...
MENLO PARK, Calif., April 2 /PRNewswire/ -- ForSight Labs, LLC, today announced the appointment of K. Angela Macfarlane as President and CEO of ForSight Labs. In addition, ForSight Labs announced the recent close of a Series A funding for their second company. This new company raised an initial $5-million round of funds from Morgenthaler Ventures, Split Rock Partners and Versant Ventures. ForSight Labs is an ophthalmic technology incubator founded in late 2005 by retinal surgeon and successful entrepreneur Eugene de Juan, Jr., M.D. and The Foundry, a long-established medical device incubator based in Menlo Park. The Foundry recognized an unmet need in ophthalmology and launched ForSight Labs with Dr. de Juan to create new ophthalmic companies which address vision impairment and other diseases of the eye.
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