New Technologies: Diagnoses Using Cell Phones

Created initially to make wireless verbal and then digital communication available to everyone, now cell phones are being used for everything from watching movies to social networking to ordering food and movie tickets and even shopping. The application potentials are limitless and now even medical applications have jumped on the cell phone bandwagon. This means that similar to telemedicine, smart phones can relay important information from remote locations to medical specialists.

For example, frequently occurring, potentially life-threatening conditions such as apnea and pneumothorax can be easily ruled out by performing an ultrasound that visualizes a respiratory motion known as lung sliding. Institutions from around the world collaborated on a study that assessed how economically and practically this information could be obtained remotely over a cellular network. 1

In this study, remote expert sonographers taught remote providers with little to no ultrasound experience how to obtain the images needed to rule out apnea and pneumothorax. Through the use of handheld ultrasound units streaming images via Skype services on an iPhone, examinations were conducted between a series of remote sites and a base station. These included: two remote on-mountain sites, a small airplane in flight, and a Calgary household, with base sites located in Pisa, Rome, Philadelphia, and Calgary.

In every example, lung sliding could easily and quickly be seen. Furthermore, the respiratory motion was easily substantiated and documented through capture of color-power Doppler and M-mode images. Other ultrasound applications, such as the Focused Assessment with Sonography for Trauma examination, vascular anatomy, and a fetal wellness assessment were also demonstrated.

In another study, conducted in South Korea, a team of scientists from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science of Technology2 demonstrated that touch screen technology can be used to detect biomolecular matter, in a similar way that standard medical tests are now conducted. Rather than spending hours waiting in lines at clinics and hospitals for tests, based on the idea that touch screens work by recognizing electronic signs based on the touch of a finger; the presence of DNA and particular proteins should be recognizable, as well.

Biochemicals, including proteins and DNA molecules, carry specific electronic charges and touch screens on smart phones work by sensing the electronic charges from the user's body on the screen. The Korean team’s experiments showed that touch screens can recognize the existence and the concentration of DNA molecules placed on them. They confirmed that touch screens are able to recognize DNA molecules with nearly 100 per cent accuracy just as large, conventional medical equipment can.

Eventually, the hope is that the touch screen will be able to identify bacteria or other disease from fluids as diverse as sputum, blood, saliva or even urine. And if along the way, researchers can find ways to overcome interference from things like sweat, moisture, etc., they'll be on the road to a whole new method of mobile diagnostics. Since putting blood or urine on a touch screen is undesirable, the sample would be placed on a strip, which would then be fed into the phone or a module attached to the phone through a designated entrance point.

1. “Simple, Almost Anywhere, With Almost Anyone: Remote Low-Cost Telementored Resuscitative Lung Ultrasound” The Journal of Trauma – December 2011

2. Dr Hyun-gyu Park and Dr Byongyeon Won - Korea Advanced Institute of Science of Technology - Angewandte Chemie Journal - January 2012

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Surgical Diathermy

Surgical Diathermy is defined as the therapeutic generation of local heat in body tissues by high-frequency electromagnetic currents. Also known as electrosurgery, surgical diathermy is a frequently used procedure that has been used in medical, dental and veterinary surgery for over two decades. Ultra high-frequency radio waves are transmitted through a fine wire electrode to a flat antenna on a ground plate. Principles of electricity are relevant in the operating room. The electrosurgical generator is the source of the electron flow and voltage. The circuit is composed of the generator, active electrode, patient, and patient return electrode. Pathways to ground are numerous but may include the OR table, stirrups, staff members, and equipment. The patient’s tissue provides the impedance, producing heat as the electrons overcome the impedance.

The high-frequency radio waves pass through tissue and make a precise surgical incision just like a scalpel blade. The surgeon chooses from varying radio waveforms that result in varying degrees of pure cutting to hemostasis.

The advantages of surgical diathermy are fine, precise incisions with hemostasis (a process which causes bleeding to stop). A key advantage is less blood obstructing the surgical field, making the procedure faster and easier. Though electrosurgery has been with us for decades, few surgeons have received formal training in its potential uses. The incorrect belief that electrosurgery techniques increase scar formation or weaken healing processes, has led surgeons to other methods to deliver energy to the living cell. The “trick” is knowing how to calculate and administer that energy is the challenge.

As the technique became more widespread, there was a rise in the number of injuries and complications reported and especially, of burns directly associated with diathermy. These were generated by the increasing use, in the interest of patient safety, of other electrical devices, coupled with ignorance of current flow interactions brought about by the associated use of a variety of medical devices. The potential explosion of combustible gases in anesthesia, endogenous intestinal gas, the induction of arrhythmias and the effect on pacemakers as the result of alternating current frequency, create extra risks in electrosurgery.

Additionally, muscle fibers can be activated by the direct electrical stimulation of diathermy and also by blocked motor endplates. This can lead to contraction of the major muscles, which may in turn be misinterpreted as insufficient anesthesia.

The use of electrosurgical plasma to effect the incisions and coagulation of blood combines the advantages of the scalpel’s cutting precision and conventional coagulation capability, while minimizing collateral thermal damage. These advantages have been shown to result in stronger healed wound strength, equivalent scarring to a scalpel, reduced serous drainage, and lower inflammatory cell counts in healing incisions.

MedWOW, the global medical equipment marketplace portal, has a wide selection of electrosurgery and surgical diathermy devices from a variety of manufacturers. As the main global eCommerce platform for all kinds of medical equipment, MedWOW features a comprehensive searchable catalogue that allows you to filter for make, manufacturer, continent, condition, price range and seller’s business type. You can currently find many hundreds of electrosurgery units from: Aaron Bovie, ArthroCare, Bard,


Berchtold, Birtcher, Boston Scientific, Cameron-miller, Codman, ConMed,
Erbe, Eschmann Equipment, Gyrus Acmi, Microvasive, Pentax, Richard Wolf,
Siemens, Storz, Valleylab, Wallach Surgical, Zimmer and many more.

Shortwave Diathermy Emerges as Treatment of Choice

Diathermy was once the most popular of all rehabilitation modalities and is now, once again, becoming a popular way to treat tissue and muscle disorders.

Diathermy uses high-frequency energy to provide deep heat to tissues. In 1921, Tesla and d'Arsonval won a Nobel Prize for work associated with diathermy to treat various diseases of the body. The method gained a significant following, but by the late 1950s, fell out of favor with most physical therapists and clinicians.

New Medical Uses for Flat Panel Digital X-Ray Technology

Digital flat panel x-ray detectors are an excellent example of how an established technology can enter into a new market. This is apparent in their use in medical imaging, where flat panel digital x-ray technology continues to show great promise in diagnostic and treatment capabilities.

Keeping this in mind, medical imaging has become the focus for flat panel digital applications and solutions, replacing traditional film radiography in hospitals and clinics as it improves efficiency, accuracy and productivity. For example, hospital technicians can position a patient, take an image and review it immediately. The technology takes only minutes to process information that with older technologies took hours or even days, delaying important and even life-saving treatments.

Avoiding Electromagnetic Interference in Hospitals

Over the past 2 decades, there has been remarkable growth in the sources of RF energy. Twenty years ago, people did not have cell phones, pagers, or laptop computers with wireless modems installed.

Over the years, many incidents of suspected electromagnetic interference (EMI) with medical devices have been documented. Defibrillators are one type of medical implant that has had problems due to electromagnetic interference that has been well-documented in medical journals. There is increased concern for the safe and effective use of devices in an environment that has become crowded with potential sources of electromagnetic interference (EMI).

Because of its concern for public health and safety, the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), which is part of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in the US, has been at the forefront of examining medical device electromagnetic interference and providing solutions. Extensive laboratory testing by CDRH and others has revealed that many medical devices can be susceptible to problems caused by EMI.

According to the CDRH, the key to addressing electromagnetic interference (EMI) is the recognition that it involves not only the device itself, but also the environment in which it is used, and anything that may come into that environment. More than anything else, the concern with EMI must be viewed as a systems problem requiring a systems approach. In this case, the solution requires the involvement of the medical device industry, the EM source industry (e.g., power industry, telecommunications industry), and the clinical user and patient.

The public must also play a part in the overall approach to recognizing and dealing with EMI. Electromagnetic compatibility, or EMC, is essentially the opposite of EMI. EMC means that the device is compatible with (i.e., no interference caused by) its EM environment, and it does not emit levels of EM energy that cause EMI in other devices in the vicinity. The wide variation of medical devices and use environments makes them vulnerable to different forms of EM energy which can cause EMI: conducted, radiated, and electrostatic discharge (ESD). Further, EMI problems with medical devices can be very complex, not only from the technical standpoint but also from the view of public health issues and solutions.

It is important to make sure you have the right kind of EMI/RFI filtering for your medical devices and hospital equipment. RFI filters play an especially important role in high-frequency and medical equipment applications. The typical frequency filtered is 10,000Hz to 30,000,000Hz for noise picked up and conducted through external wires or power cords. 30,000,000Hz to 1GHz is the frequency filtered for noise that is radiating and being picked up through the air. Low-leakage filters are used for medical equipment and devices, as they provide low levels of leakage current to meet patient safety requirements.

Electromagnetic interference (EMI) and Radio Frequency interference (RFI) are disturbances that can affect the electrical circuit because of electromagnetic induction or electromagnetic radiation from external sources. These disturbances can interrupt, degrade and/or limit the performance of the circuit itself. Many countries have requirements for products to meet Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) standards.

MedWOW, the multilingual global medical equipment platform, offers medical equipment professionals a selection of RFI filters for a variety of different devices. If there is a particular RFI filter or part that you can’t find in MedWOW’s international inventories, you can post an RFI filter request or take advantage of MedWOW’s efficient part finder service. Currently filters are available from Siemens, GE Healthcare, Philips and more.