Nearly two decades ago, Dr. Jeffrey Cadeddu was watching TV when a lightbulb went off.  The program showed teens using magnetic studs to avoid piercings in their lips, and Dr. Cadeddu, a surgeon, realized the same principle could be applied to his work, reducing the number of incisions and resultant scars.
This summer Dr. Cadeddu performed the first of several magnet-assisted prostate cancer surgeries he has now done.
“Every hole you create in a patient has a risk associated with it. Every incision means increased pain, increased risk of hitting a blood vessel,” said Dr. Cadeddu, Professor of Urology and Surgery at UT Southwestern Medical Center and a member of the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Dr. Cadeddu and his colleagues spent years developing the concept of magnetic-assisted surgery. Though another company subsequently took up the mantel, when the FDA approved the first commercial magnetic-assisted laparoscopic surgery system, Dr. Cadeddu was delighted to make UT Southwestern one of the few medical centres in the country – and the first in Texas – to put the magnetic surgery device to use.
In magnetic surgery, multiple operative devices are inserted through an access point and then the magnetic device is controlled by a magnet on the skin over the abdomen. By contrast, conventional laparoscopic or robotic surgery requires an incision for each tool.
Prostate cancer surgery is typically performed with a robotic system that requires six incisions for the various surgical instruments and camera. “Going forward, five incisions or likely even less may become standard for this procedure,” Dr. Cadeddu said.

UTSouthwestern Medical Centerhttps://tinyurl.com/yb4nzvkg

A new and extremely sensitive method of measuring ultrasound could revolutionise everything from medical devices to unmanned vehicles.
Researchers at The University of Queensland have combined modern nanofabrication and nanophotonics techniques to build the ultraprecise ultrasound sensors on a silicon chip.
Professor Warwick Bowen, from UQ’s Precision Sensing Initiative and the Australian Centre for Engineered Quantum Systems, said the development could usher in a host of exciting new technologies.
“This is a major step forward, since accurate ultrasound measurement is critical for a range of applications,” he said. “Ultrasound is used for medical ultrasound, often to examine pregnant women, as well as for high resolution biomedical imaging to detect tumours and other anomalies. It’s also commonly used for spatial applications, like in the sonar imaging of underwater objects or in the navigation of unmanned aerial vehicles. Improving these applications requires smaller, higher precision sensors and, with this new technique, that’s exactly what we’ve been able to develop.”
The technology is so sensitive that it can hear, for the first time, the miniscule random forces from surrounding air molecules.
“We’ve developed a near perfect ultrasound detector, hitting the limits of what the technology is capable of achieving,” Professor Bowen said. “We’re now able to measure ultrasound waves that apply tiny forces – comparable to the gravitational force on a virus – and we can do this with sensors smaller than a millimetre across.”
Research leader Dr Sahar Basiri-Esfahani, now at Swansea University, said the accuracy of the technology could change how scientists understand biology.
“We’ll soon have the ability to listen to the sound emitted by living bacteria and cells,” she said.
“This could fundamentally improve our understanding of how these small biological systems function. A deeper understanding of these biological systems may lead to new treatments, so we’re looking forward to seeing what future applications emerge.”

University of Queensland www.uq.edu.au/news/article/2019/01/ultra-ultrasound-revolutionise-technology

The antibiotic-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii bacterium is one of the most globally harmful bacteria that causes nosocomial infections. Researchers at the University of Turku have discovered that the bacterium attaches to plastic medical devices using tiny finger-like structures. The researchers were able to develop antibodies that prevent the bacterial spread.
Infections related to hospitals and medical devices form major healthcare problems worldwide. These infections are associated with the ability of pathogens to colonise both biotic and abiotic surfaces.
The research group discovered a unique molecular mechanism that enables Acinetobacter baumannii and related pathogenic bacteria to colonise medical devices. This mechanism enables the bacteria to spread in hospitals.
Acinetobacter baumannii is capable of colonising medical devices by means of archaic chaperone-usher (ACU) pili. Using X-ray crystallography, the researchers found three finger-like loops at the tips of the pili. These “fingers” stick extremely tightly to hydrophobic plastics which are commonly used in medical devices and tools.
– We believe that these fingers are attached into small cavities on the surfaces. This hypothesis could explain why the bacteria spread and attach so strongly to so many different hydrophobic materials, notes Zavialov.
The researchers produced antibodies that bind to the tips of the pili and completely block the bacterial attachment and biofilm formation.
Another antibiotic-resistant pathogen, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, has similar pili, and it forms similar biofilms. The researchers predict that the means suggested for battling A. baumannii might also be applied to control the spread of P. aeruginosa infections and possibly also battle against several other pathogens that use ACU pili.

University of Turkuwww.utu.fi/en/news/news/Pages/Hospital-Superbug-Uses-Tiny-Sticky-Fingers-to-Infect-Medical-Tools-and-Devices.aspx

With the support of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, scientists at Wake Forest School of Medicine have been working to find a safe, non-addictive pain killer to help fight the current opioid crisis in the US.
And they may have done just that, though in an animal model.
Known as AT-121, the new chemical compound has dual therapeutic action that suppressed the addictive effects of opioids and produced morphine-like analgesic effects in non-human primates.
“In our study, we found AT-121 to be safe and non-addictive, as well as an effective pain medication,” said Mei-Chuan Ko, Ph.D., professor of physiology and pharmacology at the School of Medicine, part of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.
“In addition, this compound also was effective at blocking abuse potential of prescription opioids, much like buprenorphine does for heroin, so we hope it could be used to treat pain and opioid abuse.”
The main objective of this study was to design and test a chemical compound that would work on both the mu opioid receptor, the main component in the most effective prescription pain killers, and the nociceptin receptor, which opposes or blocks the abuse and dependence-related side effects of mu-targeted opioids. Current opioid pain drugs, such as fentanyl and oxycodone, work only on the mu opioid receptor, which also produces unwanted side effects – respiratory depression, abuse potential, increased sensitivity to pain and physical dependence.
“We developed AT-121 that combines both activities in an appropriate balance in one single molecule, which we think is a better pharmaceutical strategy than to have two drugs to be used in combination,” Ko said.
In the study, the researchers observed that AT-121 showed the same level of pain relief as an opioid, but at a 100-times lower dose than morphine. At that dose, it also blunted the addictive effects of oxycodone, a commonly abused prescription drug.
The bifunctional profile of AT-121 not only gave effective pain relief without abuse potential, it also lacked other opioid side-effects that patients typically struggle with, such as itch, respiratory depression, tolerance and dependence.
“Our data shows that targeting the nociceptin opioid receptor not only dialled down the addictive and other side-effects, it provided effective pain relief,” Ko said. “The fact that this data was in nonhuman primates, a closely related species to humans, was also significant because it showed that compounds, such as AT-121, have the translational potential to be a viable opioid alternative or replacement for prescription opioids.”
Next steps include conducting additional preclinical studies to collect more safety data, and then if all goes well, applying to the Food and Drug Administration for approval to begin clinical trials in people, Ko said.

Wake Forest School of Medicinehttps://tinyurl.com/y9v7gklj

A large, multi-centre study refutes earlier suggestions that antiviral drugs for treating hepatitis C may lead to a higher recurrence of liver cancer.
Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center studied the records of patients who had been successfully treated for liver cancer at 31 medical centres in North America, comparing those who were and were not given direct-acting antivirals for hepatitis C. The study found no significant difference in the recurrence of liver cancer between the two groups.
Similarly, the study found no difference in the aggressiveness of the cancer in those patients who did experience a recurrence.
“Our study was inspired by a single-centre study from Spanish investigators in 2016. That study gained a lot of press and sparked fear about treating liver cancer patients for their hepatitis C,” said Dr. Amit Singal, Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Medical Director of the Liver Tumor Program. “Based on these new data, providers can feel reassured that it is safe to treat hepatitis C in these patients and allow them to receive the known benefits of hepatitis C therapy.”
Some 3.2 million individuals in the U.S., the large majority of them baby boomers, have chronic hepatitis C infection. Many of these individuals struggle with inflammation of the liver and impaired liver function, as well as cirrhosis, or scarring of liver tissue. Since 2013, effective antiviral drugs have been available to treat hepatitis C infection.
Chronic hepatitis C infection is also one of the leading causes of liver cancer. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, half of all individuals with liver cancer have underlying chronic hepatitis C infection.
The rate of new cases of liver cancer has been rising steadily in recent decades, and the state of Texas has one of the highest rates of occurrence in the country.
When liver cancer is diagnosed early, it can be effectively treated with surgery, ablation, or radiation therapy. Sometimes liver cancer patients have their tumour successfully removed, but the underlying chronic hepatitis C infection remains and continues to impair liver function further.
In this study, 42 percent of liver cancer survivors who were treated with direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) experienced a recurrence of their cancer, compared with 59 percent of patients who were not treated with antivirals.
“Our results suggest that use of DAA therapies is safe and potentially beneficial in hepatitis C-infected patients with a history of liver cancer,” said Dr. Singal, who holds the David Bruton, Jr. Professorship in Clinical Cancer Research and is Clinical Chief of Hepatology.

UT Southwestern Medical Centerwww.utsouthwestern.edu/newsroom/articles/year-2019/hepatitis-c.html