PARIS – The new European regulation on medical devices came into force on May 26, 2021, one year later than planned, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This European medical device regulation (MDR) modifies the conformity assessment procedure for medical devices in the 27 countries of the European Union, repealing two council directives implemented in the early 1990s.

That excruciating moment when patients learn their lives are potentially at risk to a “wide neck” brain aneurysm could be softened by results of a long-awaited international study led by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School. According to lead author Adam Dmytriw, wide-neck aneurysms will respond better to the Woven Endobridge Web device than metal stents and blood thinners.

Henley Ion Inc. is encouraged by early testing of a COVID-19 protection device. Henley’s Ion Virus Defender technology uses micronized electrostatic precipitation (mEP) to remove infectious bioaerosols from both inhaled and exhaled air. The company said initial tests of the prototype removed 99.8% of SARS-CoV-2 bioaerosols under Biosafety Level 3 testing conditions.

In a lively discussion at the 40th annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, panelists from leading diagnostics companies debated the best way to screen for cancer – and whether diagnostic testing does more harm than good in some circumstances. Kevin Conroy, CEO of Exact Sciences Corp., noted that he expected liquid biopsies to have an “enormous impact on making earlier cancer detection a routine part of medical care” with his company currently developing a blood-based test for colon cancer as well as a multicancer test and one for minimal residual disease.

A team led by researchers from the ETH Zürich and the University of Basel has used a combination of mass spectrometry data and machine learning to predict antibiotic resistance of clinical bacterial samples. The results, which were published in the Jan. 10, 2022, issue of Nature Medicine, could speed the identification of optimal antibiotic regimens for patients.