A New Useful Device in Performing Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR)

Photo credits to the owner

May 2014, it was recommended by the FDA advisory panel the approval of the new CPR device. February 2015, the US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approved the premarket of the ResQCPR system of Zoll Medicalm Chelmsford, MA. This system is designed to assist in cardiopulmonary resuscitation performance. According to the company, they expect the new system

Smartphone Accessory Can Detect HIV in 15 Minutes

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Thanks to the Columbia Engineering researchers for the development of a smartphone accessory that aims to detect HIV and syphilis antibodies just like an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test can do.

The dongle costs $34 which is portable and affordable. The device is a microfluidic cassette that can be attached to the Android smartphone or iPhone's audio jack as the power source.

The dongle consists of the following:

•  Disposable cassettes – it is preloaded with reagents of each disease-specific zones (HIV and syphillis viral protein)
• Assay – silver ions and gold nanoparticles are use instead of the ELISA's substrate and enzymes to magnify analytes

How to take the test?

1.      Disinfect the patient's finger and prick. It only needs a milliliter of blood.

2.      The blood is mix with a 9 mL of diluent

3.      About 2 mL of the mixture are drip into the cassette

4.      The antibody holder is place into the cassette

5.      The cassette is place into the dongle

6.      Then press the bulb and “start assay”

7.      Over 5 minutes, reagents flow through the chip

8.      A prompt pops to direct the user to slide the toggle so that a venting port is close

9.      The reagents mix

10.  After 15 minutes the result will appear

6-Day Old Infant, the Youngest Recipient for US Heart Transplant

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Baby Oliver Crawford was born premature after his mother delivered her at 33 weeks in Phoenix Children's Hospital with a heart defect. His parents knew that he has dilated cardiomyopathy when his mother went to prenatal check up at 20 weeks.

Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a condition in which the left ventricle is enlarged and weakened resulting to decrease ability of the heart to efficiently pump. This heart defect may interfere with the normal functions of the lungs, liver and other internal organs of the body.

Baby Oliver was born in January 5 and was on a national waiting list by January 9. After two days, a viable heart was available. He then underwent on heart transplant which lasted for 10 hours. Currently, he is still confined in the hospital for close monitoring because of the invasive procedure he underwent and his lungs are still weak but he is amazingly doing well weighing 6.1 lbs.

The Radioactive Iodine and Its Therapeutic Dose

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RAI or Radioactive Iodine is a therapy for thyroid problems such as hyperthyroidism and thyroid carcinoma. It is given in a form of liquid or capsule (I-131) which, once taken by patient orally, is being absorbed and concetrated in the thyroid cells. This type of treatment lowers the thyroid hormones and destroys the thyroid cells as well as the thyroid cancer cells but does not harm tissues of the rest of the body.