MEDICAL FRONTIERS

3D technology helps save baby

Beijing: Doctors in China have performed the first successful open heart surgery using a 3D-printed heart model to save a nine-month-old baby suffering from a severe heart defect, reports PTI.

 The boy, who weighed 5.6 kgs before surgery, was experiencing shortness of breath after birth and was diagnosed with Congenital Heart Defect (CHD).

The surgery performed in the northeast Jilin Province was the first open heart surgery performed using 3D printing technology through which a full-sized heart replica modeled the boy’s cardiac structure and helped the doctors plan the operation, state-run Xinhua news agency reported today.   “With the model, we were able to know precisely where and how we should cut, and how big the incision should be. And with such a thorough plan, we spent only half the time we had expected to complete the surgery,” Zhang Xueqin, the baby’s surgeon and director of the pediatric cardiac surgery centre at the People’s Hospital of Jilin said.

The operation took place, and the infant has already been transferred to a general ward and is recovering.  “The defect was very rare and complicated,” Zhang said. The young patient suffered from ‘total pulmonary venous anomalous drainage’ – which means all four of his pulmonary veins were malpositioned. He also had an atrial septal defect, causing blood to flow between the upper chambers of the heart. “He was taken to the hospital and was critically ill with heart failure and severe pneumonia, because the boy is so young and small, it was difficult to develop the best surgery plan using just an ultrasound examination, he said.

If treatment had been delayed, the baby’s chance of dying before his first birthday would have been as high as 80 per cent, he said, adding that to save the child, the team turned to 3D-printing. “China’s first cardiac surgery using 3D technology is believed to have been on July 21, 2015, on a nine-month-old boy with CHD in east China’s Jiangsu Province. The technology will hopefully be more widely used in medicine in the future, Zhang said.

Calcium Can Help Heart Disease Risk

Seoul: In older people, higher dietary calcium intake may lower the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) but not of stroke and fracture, a new study has found.

"The role of dietary calcium intake in cardiovascular disease, stroke and fracture is controversial. Moreover, participants in previous studies were from populations that had calcium-rich diets," said Sung Hye Kong from Seoul National University Hospital in South Korea.

"We aimed to evaluate whether high dietary calcium intake increases the risk of CVD, stroke and fracture in a population with low calcium intake," said Kong. Researchers conducted the study among individuals in Korea's ongoing prospective community-based Ansung and Ansan Cohort Study that began in 2001.

Of the 4,589 men and 5,042 women in the cohort study's database who were 40 years of age and above at baseline and were followed up for an average of 13 years, researchers performed their analysis in 2,199 men and 2,704 women over 50 years of age without previous cardiovascular disease and stroke.The individuals in the study reported their dietary food intake in periodic food frequency questionnaires. Cardiovascular disease, stroke and fractures were recorded during interviews and examinations every two years.

Time of eating is more important than eating

New York: When you eat is more important than what you eat as researchers have revealed that mitochondria — powerhouse of human cells — is highly regulated by the body’s biological or circadian clocks, reports IANS.

This may help explain why people who sleep and eat out of tune with their circadian clocks are at higher risk of developing obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome.

“Circadian clocks which are found in living things from bacteria to flies and humans control the rhythms of sleep, activity, eating and metabolism,” said lead author Gad Asher from Weizmann Institute’s bimolecular sciences department in Israel.

“In a sense, it’s like a daily calendar, telling the body what to expect, so it can prepare for the future and operate optimally,” Asher added.

The researchers looked for circadian changes in the mitochondria that, by creating peaks and dips in the cells’ energy levels, would also help regulate day-night cycles.

The group identified and quantified hundreds of mitochondrial proteins which showed the quantities of a whopping 40 percent peak once a day.

Surprisingly, most of the circadian proteins in the mitochondria peaked four hours into the daylight part of the cycle (in mice which are active at night).

The team provided mitochondria with sugar and found that at around fourth hour, respiration and glucose utilisation were indeed at their highest.