Implant

The thought of having titanium screws implanted into one's jawbone is probably pretty unsettling for most of us, but for people who are getting individual teeth replaced, such implants are often required as attachment points for the artificial teeth. Once those screws are in place, patients often have to wait from about four to six months before they can chew solid food, as the bone surrounding the implant heals. Now, however, Swedish scientists have developed a new bioactive nanocoating for the screws, that promises to significantly decrease the required healing time.  Read More

Joint implants should always be made of materials like titanium, so they can last the lifetime of the patient ... right? Well, not according to researchers at Finland's Tampere University of Technology. They’ve developed a product known as RegJoint, which is reportedly the world’s first biodegradable joint implant. Unlike permanent implants, it allows the patient’s bone ends to remain intact, and it creates a new joint out of their own tissue.  Read More

With the wait still on for a miniaturization ray to allow some Fantastic Voyage-style medical procedures by doctors in submarines, tiny electronic implants capable of traveling in the bloodstream show much more promise. While the miniaturization of electronic and mechanical components now makes such devices feasible, the lack of a comparable reduction in battery size has held things back. Now engineers at Stanford University have demonstrated a tiny, self-propelled medical device that would be wirelessly powered from outside the body, enabling devices small enough to move through the bloodstream.  Read More

Much as anyone with a medical condition wants to get better, it can often be difficult to get patients to stick to their medication regimens. This is particularly true for patients who are required to give themselves injections – a time-consuming and unpleasant procedure that it’s easy to “forget” to do. Scientists from MIT and Massachusetts-based company MicroCHIPS Inc., however, have come up with what could be a solution. Yesterday, they announced success in the first clinical trial of an implantable chip-based device, that automatically delivered regular doses of medication to osteoporosis sufferers.  Read More

In order to determine how a patient is recovering from orthopedic surgery, doctors must presently rely on technologies such as X-rays or MRIs. Before too long, however, they may instead simply be able to read the output from tiny sensors, implanted in the patient's body. A team of scientists from New York's Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have already created prototypes of just such a device, that measure a mere four millimeters across and are 500 microns thick.  Read More

After receiving European market approval for its Argus II Retinal Prosthesis in 2011, Second Sight has published interim results of an international clinical trial showing encouraging results in blind patients suffering degenerative eye conditions that lead to incurable blindness.  Read More

Scientists have developed a new material that can slowly release medication over a period of several months. It's hoped that the "superhydrophobic material" may one day lead to implants that would assist in the treatment of chronic pain, and in the prevention of recurring cancer tumors, by gradually releasing medication over a period of months. The team of scientists is now planning in vivo experiments to gauge the effectiveness of the material in living organisms.  Read More

We've been following the evolution of patient-embedded medical sensors for some time - miniature devices that run on batteries, transcutaneous (through-the-skin) induced current, even sugar and provide constant monitoring of various metabolic parameters. Now, a team from Purdue University's Birck Nanotechnology Center has developed a prototype pressure sensor which promises to address the shortcomings of previous designs and utilizes a novel power supply: the acoustic energy from bass-heavy riffs of rap music.  Read More

Research into developing insect cyborgs for use as first responders or super stealthy spies has been going on for a while now. Most research has focused on using batteries, tiny solar cells or piezoelectric generators to harvest kinetic energy from the movement of an insect’s wings to power the electronics attached to the insects. Now a group of researchers at Case Western Reserve University have created a power supply that relies just on the insect’s normal feeding.  Read More