Taipei Municipal Wanfang Hospital has developed a device that can help patients on dialysis detect stenosis at home in 20 seconds, Taipei Medical University (TMU) said on Saturday.
Wanfang is one of the six affiliated hospitals of the TMU Healthcare System.
TMU displayed the non-invasive arteriovenous fistula stenosis detection device, developed by Wanfang Hospital cardiologist Chen Wei-ta (陳威達) and a team at Above Care Inc, at this year’s Taiwan Healthcare Expo, which was held at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center from Thursday to Sunday.
Taiwan has a kidney disease prevalence rate of about 12 percent, with nearly 100,000 people on dialysis, Chen said.
As many patients receive hemodialysis three times a week, stenosis — or abnormal narrowing of a blood vessel — or blockage can occur easily, but it is often checked only once in three months due to insufficient examination equipment, he said.
Chen and the Above Care team developed the artificial-intelligence (AI)-based non-invasive system to help patients detect stenosis and seek treatment earlier.
It works by placing the small device on a patient’s skin to record the sound of blood flow and upload it to a cloud platform, which is automatically examined by AI.
The process takes only about 20 seconds, and the diagnosis accuracy rate is about 90 percent, Chen said.
The device is easy to operate and causes no pain — much like using a home blood pressure monitor, he said.
It is also capable of predicting changes to the arteriovenous fistula, such as when stenosis occurs, from the sound of the blood flow, he added.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
RSS