New Technique Enables Increasingly Accurate PET Scan
A novel technique which reduces image degradation caused by respiratory motion during a PET scan was developed in a recent study at the University of Eastern Finland. PET scanning is routinely used to detect cancer and heart conditions. The new technique presented in the PhD thesis of Tuomas Koivumäki, MSc (Tech.), is based on bioimpedance measurement and it allows for image reconstruction at a specific phase of the patient's breathing pattern.
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Isn't it Time that UK Family Doctors Embraced Email Services for their Patients?
The UK government sees the use of email contact and e-consultations as a means of boosting patient access to primary care and is piloting these services in 20 general practices in England. It has mandated email communication for repeat prescriptions and appointment booking in the latest general practice contract and stipulated that patients should be able to communicate electronically with their health and social care team by 2015.
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Finnish Researchers Developing a Digital Maternity Package
Every Finnish expectant mother can choose to receive a free of charge maternity package containing baby clothes and other useful items. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland is currently developing a digital maternity package with the purpose of gathering reliable health information provided by various smart devices, electronic services, and guides into a single user interface.
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Researchers Demonstrate Direct Brain-to-Brain Communication in Human Subjects
In a first-of-its-kind study, an international team of neuroscientists and robotics engineers have demonstrated the viability of direct brain-to-brain communication in humans. Recently published in PLOS ONE the highly novel findings describe the successful transmission of information via the internet between the intact scalps of two human subjects - located 5,000 miles apart.
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A Safer Approach for Diagnostic Medical Imaging
Medical imaging is at the forefront of diagnostics today, with imaging techniques like MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), CT (computerized tomography), scanning, and NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) increasing steeply over the last two decades. However, persisting problems of image resolution and quality still limit these techniques because of the nature of living tissue.
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Many Patients Lack Information about the Use of Targeted Therapies
More than three quarters of oncology specialists in Europe, South America and Asia believe their patients are not always well enough informed about the treatment options available to them, survey results have revealed at the ESMO 2014 Congress in Madrid, Spain. The results come from an online survey of 895 doctors from 12 countries in Europe, South America and Asia.
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The Shadow of a Disease
In future, some diseases might be diagnosed earlier and treated more effectively. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen have developed an optical method that makes individual proteins, such as the proteins characteristic of some cancers, visible. Other methods that achieve this only work if the target biomolecules have first been labelled with fluorescent tags; In general, however, that approach is difficult or even impossible.
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