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The increasing incidence of cutaneous melanomas requires safe, efficient diagnostic methods to improve patient outcomes while optimizing healthcare resource utilization. Teledermoscopy was incorporated into clinical practice in 2014 in northern Sweden to improve diagnostic accuracy of cutaneous lesions and increase access to specialist dermatology care. This study aimed to evaluate whether teledermoscopy has led to earlier and more efficient diagnostics of cutaneous melanomas. Data on all excised pigmented cutaneous lesions from County Council of Västerbotten analysed at the Department of Clinical Pathology from 2010 to 2019 were collected. Before the introduction of teledermoscopy, the mean Breslow thickness was significantly higher (1.44 mm vs 1.08 mm, p=0.008), the proportion of Breslow ≤ 0.8 mm significantly lower (51.4% vs 70.6%, p< 0.001), and the mean Number Needed to Excise (23.32 vs 9.01, p< 0.001) significantly higher before the introduction of teledermoscopy. This indicates that teledermoscopy contributes to earlier and more efficient melanoma diagnosis.

In this paper, we present a haptic-based wireless electronic system that helps users with profound visual impairment avoid obstacles and map their surroundings through an unknown landscape. Our aim has been to design a lightweight and low-cost system that can easily and discretely be worn by the user. The system comprises two parts: 1) the “sensor module”which is laser-based and can be worn on the belt, and 2) two “haptic modules” which can be worn on each wrist with its vibrators directly placed on the skin. These two parts communicate wirelessly which makes it comfortable for the user to wear the system. The sensor module creates a representation matrix of the surrounding objects, and as an object gets closer, a higher pulse-width-modulation (PWM) duty cycle (i.e., a higher vibratorypower) is delivered by the corresponding vibrator(s), indicating its direction and proximity. This obstacle avoidance system was tested on seven individuals between 50 and 78 years of age (mean=63.5, SD=9.3 years) with profound vision impairment. The participants were instructed to walk through two path configurations: one with and another without the proposed assistive system. According to our results, significantly (p<0.05) shorter time(Median = 64s (IQR 32-81) versus Median = 95s (IQR 51-134) was needed and slightly fewer collisions occurred once they used this assistive system. The participants stated that they found the haptic signals intuitive and easy to understand. Hardware schematics and codes are publicly available for future development.

Innovation has become increasingly important for most industries to cope with rapid technological changes as well as changing societal needs. Even though there are many sectors with specific needs when it comes to supporting innovation, the medical technology sector is facing several unique challenges that both increases the lead-time from idea to finished product and decreases the number of innovations that are developed. This paper presents a proposed innovation guide that has been developed and evaluated as a support for the innovation process within medical technology research. The guide takes the unique characteristics of the medical technology sector into account and serves as a usable guide for the innovator. The complete guide contains both a structure for the process and a usable web application to support the journey from idea to finished products and services. The paper also includes a new readiness level, Sect. 4.2 to provide support both when developing and determining the readiness for clinical implementation of a medical technology innovation.

Purpose: To examine feasibility of phase-contrast magnetic resonance imaging (PCMRI) and to assess blood flow rate in the ophthalmic artery (OA) in patients with normal tension glaucoma (NTG) compared with healthy controls.

Methods: Sixteen patients with treated NTG and 16 age- and sex-matched healthy controls underwent PCMRI using a 3-Tesla scanner and ophthalmological examinations. OA blood flow rate was measured using a 2D PCMRI sequence with a spatial resolution of 0.35 mm(2).

Results: The blood flow rate in the NTG group was 9.6 +/- 3.9 ml/min [mean +/- SD] compared with 11.9 +/- 4.8 ml/min in the control group. Resistance Index (RI) and Pulsatility Index (PI) were 0.73 +/- 0.08 and 1.36 +/- 0.29, respectively, in the NTG group and 0.68 +/- 0.13 and 1.22 +/- 0.40, respectively, in the healthy group. The mean visual field index (VFI) was 46% +/- 25 for the worse NTG eyes. The measured differences observed between the NTG group and the control group in blood flow rate (p = 0.12), RI (p = 0.18) and PI (p = 0.27) were non-significant.

Conclusions: This case-control study, using PCMRI, showed a slight, but non-significant, reduction in OA blood flow rate in the NTG patients compared with the healthy controls. These results indicate that blood flow may be of importance in the pathogenesis of NTG. Considering that only a limited portion of the total OA blood flow supplies the ocular system and the large inter-individual differences, a larger study or more advanced PCMRI technique might give the answer.

PURPOSE: To investigate if decrease of IOP affects the volumetric blood flow rate in the ophthalmic artery (OA) in patients with previously untreated ocular hypertension.

METHODS: Subjects with untreated ocular hypertension (n = 30; mean age 67 +/- 8 years; 14 females) underwent ophthalmologic examination and a 3-Tesla magnetic resonance imaging investigation. The magnetic resonance imaging included three-dimensional high-resolution phase-contrast magnetic resonance imaging to measure the OA blood flow rate. The subjects received latanoprost once daily in the eye with higher pressure, the untreated eye served as control. The same measurements were repeated approximately 1 week later.

RESULTS: The mean OA blood flow rate before and after treatment was 12.4 +/- 4.4 and 12.4 +/- 4.6 mL/min in the treated eye (mean +/- SD; P = 0.92) and 13.5 +/- 5.2 and 13.4 +/- 4.1 mL/min in the control eye (P = 0.92). There was no significant difference between the treated and control eye regarding blood flow rate before (P = 0.13) or after treatment (P = 0.18), or change in blood flow rate after treatment (0.1 +/- 3.1 vs.-0.1 +/- 4.0 mL/min, P = 0.84). Latanoprost decreased the IOP by 7.2 +/- 3.1 mm Hg in the treated eye (P < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate that a significant lowering of IOP does not affect the blood flow rate of the OA in ocular hypertension subjects. The ability to maintain blood supply to the eye independent of the IOP could be a protective mechanism in preserving vision in subjects with ocular hypertension.

Purpose: To determine the blood flow rate of the ophthalmic artery (OA) in patients with Normal Tension Glaucoma (NTG) compared to age-matched healthy controls using phase-contrast magnetic resonance imaging (PCMRI).

Methods: Seventeen patients with treated NTG (11 female; mean age: 70±9 years) and 16 age-matched healthy controls (10 female; mean age: 71±9 years) underwent PCMRI using a 3-Tesla scanner as well as ophthalmological examinations including visual acuity, Goldmann Applanation Tonometry, Humphrey perimetry and fundoscopy. Ophthalmic blood flow was acquired using a 2D PCMRI sequence set to a spatial resolution of 0.35mm/pixel. Mean flow rate and cross-sectional area was calculated using Segment Software. The eye with the most severe glaucomatous damage classified by visual field index (VFI) was chosen for comparison. The primary outcome was blood flow rate of OA.

Results: The mean VFI was 41% ± 26 (mean±SD) for the worse NTG eyes. The intraocular pressure was 13.6±2.6 mmHg for NTG eyes and 13.8±2.1 mmHg for control eyes. The blood flow rate in the NTG group was 9.6±3.7 ml/min compared to 11.8±5.5 ml/min in the control group. The area was 1.7±0.3 mm2 and 2.0±0.6 mm2 respectively. No statistical significance was found between NTG and the control group regarding blood flow rate (p=0.07) or OA area (p=0.12).

Conclusions: Despite OA being an anastomosis between the intracranial and extracranial circulation, possibly generating an eye unrelated variability in blood flow, we found a trend level reduction of approximately 2 ml/min in NTG. The finding warrants blood flow rate analysis of smaller arteries specifically supplying the eye, e.g. the central retinal artery.

A numerical 3D ray tracing model was used to evaluate the long-term visual effects of two regimens of corneal crosslinking (CXL) treatment of 48 patients with the corneal degeneration keratoconus. The 3D ray tracing analyses were based on corneal elevation data measured by Scheimpflug photography. Twenty-two patients were treated with standard CXL applied uniformly across the corneal surface, whereas 26 patients underwent a customized, refined treatment only at local zones on the cornea (photorefractive intrastromal CXL; PiXL). Spot diagrams, spot root-mean-square (RMS) values, and Strehl ratios were evaluated for the patients prior to and 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after treatment. It was found that the group of patients treated with PiXL, on average, tended to attain a long-term improvement of the corneal optical performance, whereas only minor changes of the optical parameters were found for group treated with standard CXL. Our results confirmed that standard CXL treatment stabilizes the corneal optical quality over time, and thus halts the progression of the corneal degeneration. In addition to stabilization, the results showed that a significantly higher proportion of subjects treated with PiXL improved in RMS, 3, 6, and 12 months after treatment, compared to with CXL (p&lt;0.05). This finding indicates that the PiXL treatment might improve optical quality over time.

Based on numerical 3D ray tracing, we propose a new procedure to optimize personalized intra-ocular lenses (IOLs). The 3D ray tracing was based on measured corneal elevation data from patients who suffered from advanced keratoconus. A mathematical shape description of the posterior IOL surface, by means of a tensor product cubic Hermite spline, was implemented. The optimized lenses provide significantly reduced aberrations. Our results include a trade-off study that suggests that it is possible to considerably reduce the aberrations with only minor perturbations of an ideal spherical lens. The proposed procedure can be applied for correction of aberrations of any optical system by modifying a single surface.

We propose a numerical three-dimensional (3D) ray-tracing model for the analysis of advanced corneal refractive errors. The 3D modeling was based on measured corneal elevation data by means of Scheimpflug photography. A mathematical description of the measured corneal surfaces from a keratoconus (KC) patient was used for the 3D ray tracing, based on Snell's law of refraction. A model of a commercial intraocular lens (IOL) was included in the analysis. By modifying the posterior IOL surface, it was shown that the imaging quality could be significantly improved. The RMS values were reduced by approximately 50% close to the retina, both for on-and off-axis geometries. The 3D ray-tracing model can constitute a basis for simulation of customized IOLs that are able to correct the advanced, irregular refractive errors in KC.