Brain implant relieves patient’s severe depression in “landmark” US study

February 25, 2022 United States researchers have successfully relieved a patient’s severe, long-term depression with an electronic implant that acts like a neural pacemaker, resetting the brain circuits associated with negative feelings.  The team at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) said the study was “a landmark success” in the scientific effort to treat … Read more

Rapid COVID-19 tests increasingly scarce, pricey as demand from employers jumps

February 23, 2022 Test makers including Abbott Laboratories, Quidel Corp and LumiraDX Ltd are scaling up production to meet rising demand.  However, significantly boosting test output will take weeks to months, half a dozen industry executives told Reuters, making the tests harder to procure in the near term.  “Employer demand has gone crazy,” said Quidel … Read more

FDA resists industry push to nix De Novo inspections in final rule

February 17, 2022 The MedTech industry welcomed the broad goals of the proposed rule published late in 2018; however, pushed back hard against some of its provisions, notably with regard to FDA’s plans to carry out premarket manufacturing inspections.  FDA, while making some tweaks to the draft, held firm on the main points of friction … Read more

California Extends HIPAA Telehealth Waiver to End of Public Health Emergency

February 08, 2022 California Governor Gavin Newsom has extended an Executive Order (EO) enabling physicians to conduct routine and non-emergency telehealth services without risk of being penalized for the inadvertent release of patient data.  Executive Order N-16-21 continues an order put in place in April of 2020, during the height of the pandemic, which gave … Read more

University of South Florida (USF) students develop new lifesaving ventilator

February 03, 2022 Three (3) Biomedical Engineering Graduates from the University of South Florida (USF) in the United States have developed a lifesaving medical ventilator to support the Covid-19 crisis.  Carolyna Yamamoto Alves Pinto, Abby Blocker and Jacob Yarinsky have developed the patent-pending prototype device, Eucovent, that allows two patients to be ventilated by a … Read more

Breast cancer: Artificial intelligence boosts accuracy of tumor diagnoses

February 01, 2022 Each year around two million women around the world are diagnosed with breast cancer.  Typically, tissue samples of the tumor are taken and analyzed and then the cancer is placed into one (1) of three (3) categories – low risk, or grade 1; medium risk, or grade 2; and high risk, or … Read more