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physiological monitoring to improve the way patients are rehabilitated.


50 MORE YEARS AFTER 50


While advances in medicine have increased life expectancy in most parts of the world, our musculoskeletal and cardiovascular systems continue to age as we live longer, and often need interventions to support them. The Wellcome EPSRC Leeds Medical Engineering Centre (WELMEC) will develop new methods and devices to understand and treat the processes of degeneration.


Technology has always played a role in the treatment of this disease: for example, through engineered knee replacements. More than 130,000 knee and hip replacement surgeries were carried out in the UK in 2006 as the final-stage treatment for osteoarthritis.


The Medical Engineering Centre at Imperial College London, led by Professor Ross Ethier, will create products that can better detect and monitor osteoarthritis, that improve clinical intervention in the repair of joints damaged by the disease, and that create new paradigms for rehabilitation of patients with osteoarthritis. It will bring together engineers, surgeons, rehabilitation therapists, chemists, imaging scientists, computer scientists, materials scientists and cell biologists in order to create new products that bring real benefits to patients.


The research themes will include biosensing technology for early detection and monitoring of osteoarthritis, basic science to better understand the molecular processes of the disease, and tissue engineering and robotic surgery techniques to create new bone-cartilage constructs to replace cartilage in damaged knees.


They will also design a new generation of knee implants to overcome problems with existing devices, develop robotic technology to place knee and hip implants more precisely, and pursue advances in wireless technologies and


will last 25 years is reasonable for a patient in their 70s, the same implant in a 50-year-old – with a more active lifestyle – may only last 15 years, and continuing replacement of the implant is not a good solution.


By understanding the different types of sub-populations of patients with degenerative diseases, researchers hope to produce ways of diagnosing accurately the precise nature of an individual’s condition, allowing the introduction of more tailored interventions. At Leeds, they are already developing regenerative biological scaffolds that allow the growth of replacement tissue for patients from their own cells.


The research programme at Leeds has the title ‘50 more years after 50’, referring both to extending life and, crucially, improving quality of life through the application of innovative medical engineering research.


ONGOING COLLABORATION


Engineers have been at the forefront of medical innovation throughout the history of medicine, benefiting millions of people with tools such as implants and prosthetic limbs, devices to monitor the physiological state of patients, and instruments to maintain bodily functions, such as the implantable pacemaker.


WELMEC, directed by Professor John Fisher, will be enhanced by other funding sources, such as an EPSRC- funded Innovation and Knowledge Centre, which will take products into clinical trials, providing support all along the development pipeline.


Osteoarthritis is a good example of how the Leeds Centre will approach medical engineering. The disease is increasing due to a number of factors, including people living longer, which means joints have to do more work and are more prone to damage.


But obesity can also be a cause of osteoarthritis, as can high activity lifestyles. And while giving an implant that


As both medicine and engineering continue to advance at great pace, it is crucial that the links between these disciplines are maintained, especially with the potential for groundbreaking advances in fields such as imaging and genetics. The opportunities for engineers and medical scientists to collaborate are endless, but all too often are missed because each community operates in its own siloed compartment.


Through the Medical Engineering scheme, the Wellcome Trust and EPSRC hope to engage engineers, scientists and medics in ground breaking research, and stimulate collaborations that will continue beyond the five-year lifetime of the funding. The aim is to ensure cutting edge technology continues to enter the clinic in an effective and evidence-based manner, to improve the lives of patients in the NHS and around the world.


Liverpool Hospitals Improve Their Blood Glucose Testing Services


Roche UK is providing a Point of Care (POC) Managed Laboratory Service (MLS) to the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust, the Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital NHS Trust and the Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust. The MLS covers 185 wireless-enabled Accu-Chek®


Inform II


blood glucose meters in four hospitals across three sites. Connectivity to the laboratory information system is via wireless connection, using the powerful cobas IT1000 dedicated data management system, allowing real-time availability of test results and a full audit trail.


Kath Ashton, POC Testing Manager at Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust, is managing the new blood glucose testing service. “Previously, we used handheld glucose meters with no connectivity,” she explained.


“Performing nearly half a million tests every year, monitoring internal


quality control and external quality assessment of glucose testing was extremely labour intensive, involving bi-monthly audits on each instrument. Our managed service agreement with Roche has allowed us to upgrade our meters to have full connectivity, so that audit trails are now provided automatically - from the requesting of tests to the reporting of results, including user identification and training status, patient identification, internal quality control and external quality control results.”


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Integrated Analysis Accessible to All


With the launch of its ARCHITECT ci4100 low-volume integrated analyser in July, Abbott Diagnostics has completed the all-encompassing ARCHITECT family. Abbott’s ARCHITECT analysers are a flexible range of solutions, tailored to fit the varying needs of laboratories from high throughput to smaller satellite labs.


Combining the new ARCHITECT c4000 clinical chemistry and ARCHITECT i1000SR immunoassay systems the ci4100 is designed to meet the requirements of low-volume laboratories, delivering high levels of technical sophistication without compromise.


ARCHITECT systems have true family commonality for enhanced ease of use and equivalent patient results. Abbott now offers clinical chemistry and immunoassay instruments built specifically to cater for low, medium and high volume throughput. Able to link together to form combined clinical chemistry and immunoassay systems, the ARCHITECT family of analysers offers real flexibility. By selecting instruments tailored to their needs, laboratories can help optimise performance outcomes, refine resource usage and ultimately, achieve leaner quality healthcare.


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Interested in publishing a Technical Article?


Contact Tamsyn Hicks on +44 (0)1727 855574 or email: tamsyn@intlabmate.com


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