Medical Bulletin 15/August/2022

Here are the top medical news for the day:

Cure epilepsy and is developed by a UCL led team of international researchers

The Multicentre Epilepsy Lesion Detection project (MELD) used over 1,000 patient MRI scans from 22 global epilepsy centres to develop the algorithm, which provides reports of where abnormalities are in cases of drug-resistant focal cortical dysplasia (FCD) – a leading cause of epilepsy.

To develop the algorithm, the team quantified cortical features from the MRI scans, such as how thick or folded the cortex/brain surface was, and used around 300,000 locations across the brain.

Ref:

Mathilde Ripart et. al,Interpretable surface-based detection of focal cortical dysplasias: a Multi-centre Epilepsy Lesion Detection study, Brain,12-Aug-2022

Smart contact lenses for cancer diagnostics and screening

Because of multiple capabilities, there has been much interest in using exosomes for cancer diagnosis and prognosis/treatment prediction. However, this has been hampered by the difficulty in isolating exosomes in sufficient quantity and purity for this purpose.

Scientists from the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation (TIBI) have developed a contactlens that can capture and detect exosomes. The lens was designed with microchambers bound to antibodies that can capture exosomes found in tears. This antibody-conjugated signaling microchamber contact lens (ACSM-CL) can be stained for detection with nanoparticle-tagged specific antibodies for selective visualization. This offers a potential platform for cancer pre-screening and a supportive diagnostic tool that is easy, rapid, sensitive, cost-effective, and non-invasive.

Ref:

Ali Khademhosseini, Shaopei Li, Yangzhi Zhu, et al, A microchambers containing contact lens for the non-invasive detection of tear exosomes, Advanced Functional Materials,10.1002/adfm.202206620

Large study confirms that COVID 19 mRNA vaccines are safe in pregnancy

This new study, from The Canadian National Vaccine Safety (CANVAS) Network, looked at data from participants across seven Canadian provinces and territories between December 2020 and November 2021. All vaccinated participants were asked to self-report any health events during the seven days following each dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

The unvaccinated pregnant control group was asked to record any health problems over the seven days before they filled out the survey. In total, 191,360 women aged 15-49 years with known pregnancy status completed the first dose survey and 94,937 completed the second dose survey.

Ref:

Dr Julie Bettinger et. al, Safety of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnancy: a Canadian NationalVaccine Safety (CANVAS) network cohort study, The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 11-Aug-2022