Recent Patents on Biomedical Engineering (Discontinued) - Volume 5, Issue 2, 2012

Biopotentials are voltage signals collected at animal's or human's body surface which supply information about nerves, muscles and organs functionalities. Several kinds of biopotential, regarding the functionality of different parts of the organism, are commonly monitored in order to identify pathologies or abnormalities. Electrocardiogram, electroencephalogram and electromyogram are examples of biopotentials. A r Read More

The percutaneous delivery of artificial heart valves via catheter has in the past few years, received widespread attention due to its regulatory approval in Europe and now in the United States as well as its proposed reduction of surgery related morbidity and mortality. This review describes the patents of the currently approved transcatheter aortic valves, as well as the patents of their important accessory valvular compone Read More

Intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration is a major cause of clinical back pain and thus has a significant clinical impact on life quality of humans. The associated poor intrinsic regeneration capacity of the IVD, due to low cell density, avascular nature of the extracellular matrix (ECM), lack of the lymphatic vessels or innervation leads to an increased susceptibility of IVD to degenerative pathology. During disc degeneration, dehydr Read More

Cell cultivation is a promising remedy for damages of organism tissues. Since the experiments with cells in vivo are very complicated, many researchers are directing their efforts toward cultivation of cells in vitro to avoid this complexity. To achieve this goal, bioreactors are necessary to create the proper situation for cultivation of cells. One of the main requirements for such bioreactors is the ability to create stimulation Read More

Treatment of large bone defects poses a real challenge to the orthopaedic surgeon. The surgeon often times calls on creativity in the form of bone graft substitutes to help mend large bone defects. The bone graft substitutes used today include inorganic compounds such as calcium phosphate, osteoconductive composites which act as a scaffold to allow for new bone growth, and some may include osteoinductive proteins which Read More

Thermosensitive liposomes have been a popular area of investigation for several years leading to a plentitude of scientific literature and several patents. The majority of formulations are still in the early stage of development and preclinical testing, although one formulation, ThermoDox®, is significantly more advanced. This formulation is now in clinical trials for a few different cancer indications. In this review, key patents an Read More

Dendrimers have found extensive convention in varied fields of biomedical engineering. Particularly, polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimers have been found to have unique properties, and also interesting researches in the field of biomedical engineering have been recognized, when compared to other class of dendrimers. PAMAM dendrimers are biofriendly synthetic substances, and broadly studied dendrimers for bio Read More

Recent progress in breast imaging has led to new, improved techniques. Mammography is one of the most widely used breast cancer diagnosis technique as it allows visualization of breast lumps and calcifications before they are palpable. Nonetheless, it has some limitations, including structural overlap, because a mammogram is a 2D image of a 3D structure. Techniques based on 3D-reconstruction of breast images, s Read More

The patents annotated in this section have been selected from various patent databases. These recent patents are relevant to the articles published in this journal issue, categorized by different nanotechnology methods, processes and techniques involved.....