Medical devices Electrical stimulation helped a Parkinson's patient walk
An experimental treatment in a small study sending electrical currents to a Parkinson's patient's spinal cord appeared to improve his ability to keep balance and walk without freezing up, my colleague Matt Herper reports. If the neurostimulation works in larger studies, experts say it could be a significant development in treatment.
Sixty-two year old Marc, the volunteer who received the experimental treatment, has had Parkison's for 30 years. Without the neurostimulation device, he'd fall several times a day; now, he told reporters, he can go outside alone without assistance. Marc has also taken medication and received another treatment known as deep brain stimulation.
The results "open realistic perspectives to develop a treatment that alleviates gait deficits due to Parkinson's disease," said Jocelyne Bloch, a neurosurgeon at CHUV Lausanne University Hospital in Lausanne, Switzerland and a senior author on the study published in Nature Medicine.
While outside experts were enthusiastic about the results, they and the authors emphasized that much larger studies are needed. Read more here.
Inari Medical to buy LimFlow
Elsewhere in the hardware world, vascular device manufacturer Inari Medical plans to scoop up LimFlow, a company selling last-line therapies targeting limbs with blocked blood flow, Lizzy Lawrence writes.
LimFlow recently scored FDA approval for its system using a stent to connect blocked arteries to open veins, opening blood flow to better heal injuries among patients with artery disease. Inari will pay $250 million up front and a potential additional $165 million depending on LimFlow's success. Read more on the deal here.
On tap today
Next up: UCSF's Algorithmic Justice workshop and the Milken Institute's Future of Health Summit
In the pre-holiday crush, we'll be tracking some industry gatherings this week: The Milken Institute's Future of Health summit kicked off Monday, and today our editor Rick Berke is slated to chat with Verily's Amy Abernethy, Vesalius Therapeutics' Christopher Austin, Novavax's Silvia Taylor and FDA's Janet Woodcock about progress in biomedical innovation. Later today, STAT's Isa Cueto will discuss chronic disease prevention with the Alzheimer's Association's Kristen Clifford, Delta Dental's Joseph Dill, CDC's Karen Hacker, the Bipartisan Policy Center's Anand Parekh, and Biogen's Maha Radhakrishnan.
Tomorrow, our reporter Nicholas St. Fleur discusses health equity with Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum's Juliet K. Choi, Washington Housing Conservancy's Kimberly Driggins, Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing's Jason Farley, and Nemours Children's Hospitals' Kara Odom Walker.
In the Bay Area today, I'll be presenting at a UCSF workshop called "Toward Algorithmic Justice in Precision Medicine"; I'll be discussing what community groups and health workers tell me are the do's and don'ts of engaging patients and communities on precision medicine and algorithms. Send thoughts before that discussion, which happens around 11:00 PT, to mohana.ravindranath@statnews.com.
Virtual care
Treating rural America: The telehealth solution
Rural states are experiencing acute provider shortages; specialists are especially hard to find, with just about 30 for every 100,000 rural residents, according to data from the National Rural Health Association.
In part three of STAT's short documentary series on rural health, Hyacinth Empinado examines South Dakota-based Sanford Health's use of telehealth to bring specialized care to rural patients. Check it out here.
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