Archive for May, 2007

A woman survived internal decapitation

Thursday, May 17th, 2007

On January 25th, a car crash took place in Nebraska and Shannon Malloy (a previously healthy 30 year old woman) was seriously injuried. Her skull became separated from her cervical spine, this is what is called internal decapitation.

“I remember the impact and then I had no control over my head… I wasn’t focused so much on the pain. I just kept thinking, ‘I have to stay alive,’” said Shannon.

5 screws were drilled into Shannon’s neck and 4 more were drilled into her head to keep it stabilized. Then a thing called a halo (rods and a circular metal bar around her head) was attached for added support. It’s not exactly a pain-free procedure.

Shannon Malloy still has a long, costly recovery ahead. A fund has been set up in Malloy’s name at Wells Fargo banks. You can make donations at any location under the “The Benefit of Shannon Malloy.”

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Digital manipulation

Sunday, May 6th, 2007

Artist Koen Hauser is a specialist in digital picture manipulation. This collection is called Modische Atlas der Anatomie.

Lovely work I said.

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Posted in Medlinks | 5 Comments »

NeuroArm

Thursday, May 3rd, 2007

Neurosurgery is about to change with the arrival of Neuro Arm, a new robot system developed by specialists of The Calgary University.

This device was designed by Garnette Sutherland, a neurosurgeon who worked the last 6 years to make the device that frees the surgeons of the possible faults caused by the human hand.

“Many of our microsurgery techniques come from the 60s, and have put to the surgeons the lack of the exactitude, precision, skills and resistance,” explained the professor of neurosurgery.

“Neuro Arm shows a spatial resolutions that allows neurosurgeons to operate with such precision tha we could speak of a cellular level.”

It is designed to be operated by a neurosurgeon from a workstation, the robot operates with a system of realtime images, offering a detail without precedent, and a better control of the equipment.

The surgical tests of Neuro Arm in the human patient are in process, and we hope that the first surgery with this device could be this summer,” added Sutherland.

This surgical device was designed and made in collaboration with MDA, a well-known company to participate with the NASA in the development of the robotic arm Canadarm2, used in the space shuttles. The project began in 2001, had a cost of 2 million dollars, mainly provided by B.J. and Don Seaman.

“The best surgeons can work in a space of 1/8 of inch, whereas this robot does possible to work in a space of the wide one of a hair,” explained Don Seaman.

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Twin-to-Twin transfusion

Thursday, May 3rd, 2007

Byron and Lincoln Ryman were born within a minute of each other, first Byron (3lb 6oz) was precisely three times bigger than his brother.

Eleven weeks premature, both boys were given a little chance of survival – particularly Lincoln, weighing only 1lb 2oz at birth.

But yesterday this twins, now they are five weeks old, are doing well, thanks to the dedicated staff at the Royal Hospital for Women in Sydney.

Twins

This is called twin-to-twin transfusion, where one of the blood flow of one of the babies goes from the smaller to the larger twin.

“Lincoln’s chances of survival, I considered, were less than 30 per cent because he was so small.”

But after their birth, both brothers showed an “exceptional will to live,” said Dr Mishra.

“Lincoln initially had a lot of breathing problems and then he had heart problems, so an operation was carried out when he was still about 600g (1lb 5oz).

“But Byron also needed a little bit of help with his breathing before he began to gain proper weight and now he is doing well.

“We’re now watching both boys carefully, particularly little Lincoln, but we hope that he’ll soon start gaining weight much more quickly and get nearer and nearer his brother,” said Dr. Mishra.

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