Today Dr. Steven Pearlman will be implementing a newly FDA-approved tool that may help plastic surgeons improve revision rhinoplasty surgeries. Dr. Pearlman will be using the PDS plate, an absorbable and structural support, to perform a nasal reconstruction on a 6-year-old child, who fell and, as a result, smashed his nose. After a repair surgery with a local physician, the child’s nose began dropping, and he began to experience trouble breathing. The PDA plate has seen success in Europe for several years. The device supports the nasal structure for approximately three months, providing...

Metabolic Solutions Development Company has raised enough money to proceed with a clinical trial of its novel drug candidate that will target type 2 diabetes, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The company, which develops therapeutics to treat diabetes and other metabolic disorders, announced this week that it had raised $23.5 million, bringing the total raised since 2006 to $50 million. The funds will allow the company to conduct a Phase 2b double-blind clinical trial with more than 420 patients at 30 planned sites. MSDC-0160, the drug candidate, would significantly improve the safety...

Healthcare reform has been a buzzed-about topic in the U.S. since the mid-1990s – and for good reason, too. A recent survey found that patients in the U.S. have the worst health experience out of 11 developed countries. The survey, conducted by the Commonwealth Fund, looked at healthcare in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK, and found that in nearly all measurements the U.S. came in dead last. For example, 20 percent of U.S. patients reported having trouble paying their medical bills, compared to rates of 9 percent...

Many cancer survivors complain of “chemo brain” – or a mental fog that causes them to forget things and impairs their ability to concentrate long after treatment ends. However, a new study suggests that this may not just be limited to chemotherapy patients. Analyzing data gathered from 2001 to 2006 by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey on 9,819 adults ages 40 and older, researchers found that individuals with a history of cancer were more than 40 percent more likely to report memory impairment. Treatments to fight these effects are currently being...

These days plastic surgery is not just for older men and women who want to turn back the signs of aging on their faces and bodies. Young people are increasingly looking to surgeons to correct aspects of their appearance they find less than satisfying. Nose reshaping, or rhinoplasty, is the most requested aesthetic and plastic surgery procedure by teens. Most surgeons recommend that their patients wait until the age of 13 or 14 for girls and 15 or 16 for boys, the age when the nose is 90% of adult size. Although a nose job procedure can have a positive impact on a teen’s self-esteem...

Many Hollywood stars and wannabes have altered their appearance with plastic surgery, believing that larger breasts, straighter noses and unlined faces are the key to landing choice movie projects and high-paying roles. Now, more and more casting directors and movie executives are changing their views on what makes a desirable actor. Some actresses get nose jobs and it changes their appearance for the better, but getting a nose job is credited with ruining Jennifer Grey’s career after she starred in Dirty Dancing with Patrick Swayze. Turns out viewers and decision-makers in Hollywood...

Infertility is a devastating medical condition, affecting more than 10 percent of couples worldwide. However, thanks to the work of Robert Edwards, a professor emeritus at the University of Cambridge – and this year’s Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine – for these individuals, the possibility to conceive a child is now a reality. While still a Ph.D. student at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Edwards got the idea for in vitro fertilization, which he later developed through a research partnership with gynecologist Patrick Steptoe. In July 1978, Edwards and...

Athersys Incorporated, alongside its collaborators Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) and Center for Stem Cell and Regeneration Medicine (CSCRM), recently announced that it was granted $1 million through the Ohio Third Frontier Biomedical Program, which supports spinal cord injury research. The project aims to enhance the preclinical study of MultiStem, the company’s proprietary stem cell product. The company and a group of CWRU researchers, headed by neurologist Dr. Jerry Silver, discovered that MultiStem decreases the inflammation that occurs after an injury in the spinal cord....

Uphill cyclists are preparing for the Seventh Annual Gear Up For Lyme Mt. Equinox Uphill Bike Climb this August 2010. In 2009, the Manchester Rotary Club sponsored the affair that had about 200 competitors, racing their bikes and unicycles up the mountain’s Skyline Drive Auto Road. This is the seventh consecutive year that the Rotary Club of Manchester, a regular contributor to local, regional and worldwide projects through fundraisers, introduced the Casella Waste Management as the event’s title sponsor. Member and race director of the Club, Andy Holzman, said that Casella has always...

Lily Safra donated $2.5 million to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for medical research on the progression of Parkinson’s disease. Her gift will help launch a public-private collaboration to fund the five-year Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative, which is estimated to cost $40 million. Lily Safra is a founding board member of the Michael J. Fox Foundation, which focuses its efforts on finding a cure for Parkinson’s disease. Her late husband Edmond Safra, a prominent banking executive and longtime supporter of the Foundation, suffered from Parkinson’s Disease. Unlike other...