Editor's Note A Florida-based surgeon successfully performed a prostate cancer surgery on a patient in Angola—7,000 miles away—marking a major milestone in transcontinental robotic telesurgery, according to a June 17 article from ABC News. The procedure, conducted by Dr. Vipul Patel of Advent Health’s Global Robotic Institute, is reportedly the…
Editor's Note An experimental compound developed at Duke University School of Medicine provides strong pain relief without the side effects or addiction potential of opioids, according to a May 19 announcement from the university. Known as SBI-810, the drug targets a specific receptor in the nervous system and uses a…
Editor's Note Targeted training in non-technical skills significantly improves scrub practitioners’ self-efficacy—particularly in communication, teamwork, and situational awareness—according to a new randomized controlled trial published by BMC Medical Education on May 7. As reported in the study, 60 scrub practitioners from two Iranian hospitals were randomly assigned to intervention and…
Editor's Note University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and University of Southern California (USC) surgeons have completed the world’s first human bladder transplant, marking a new milestone in organ transplantation and paving the way to for treating debilitating bladder conditions previously considered irreversible. As detailed in a May 18 announcement…
Editor's Note According to results from a randomized trial, titled KEYNOTE-689, adding pembrolizumab (Keytruda) to surgery and standard adjuvant therapy significantly prolongs event-free survival (EFS) in patients with resectable, locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), MedPage Today April 28 reports. Experts are calling the findings a major…
Editor's Note A new noninvasive procedure called magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS) capsulotomy is showing promising results for patients with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), Asian Scientist March 26 reports. In a study conducted by researchers in South Korea and published in Molecular Psychiatry, 10 individuals who received MRgFUS capsulotomy at…
Editor's Note Surgical removal of enlarged tonsils and adenoids significantly decreases medical visits and prescription use in children with mild sleep-disordered breathing (SDB), according to a March 17 study in JAMA Pediatrics. Supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the study found that adenotonsillectomy led to a 32% reduction…
Editor's Note A newly refined 7T MRI imaging technique may significantly improve outcomes for people with hard-to-treat focal epilepsy by revealing tiny brain lesions that standard imaging methods often miss, HealthDay March 26 reports from a new study published in the journal Epilepsia. Researchers achieved this advance by implementing “parallel…
Editor's Note Cardiothoracic surgeons at Emory University Hospital have conducted the first US implantation of the BrioVAD System, a new ventricular assist device (VAD) from BrioHealth Solutions, Cardiovascular Business News reported November 25. According to the article, the BrioVAD System features a magnetically suspended, hemocompatible pump designed to minimize adverse…
Editor's Note Although data suggest transcatheter edge-to-edge repair (TEER) using the MitraClip device may offer similar outcomes to mitral valve surgery in patients with heart failure and functional mitral regurgitation (FMR), experts have criticized the research, TCT MD reported September 1. Presented at the recent European Society of Cardiology (ESC)…