Implants

Dr. David Scharp figures he just got the chance of a lifetime. For two decades, the noted St. Louis surgeon has been working on new treatments for diabetics. He joined Neocrin Inc. recently and found himself in the thick of a race to develop a new method for attacking diabetes. The small research firm is on the cutting edge of technology as it experiments with an implant that can act like a pancreas and eliminate the need for insulin injections. "This is the assault on the summit!"

Dr. David Scharp figures he just got the chance of a lifetime. For two decades, the noted St. Louis surgeon has been working on new treatments for diabetics. He joined Neocrin Inc. recently and found himself in the thick of a race to develop a new method for attacking diabetes. The small research firm is on the cutting edge of technology as it experiments with an implant that can act like a pancreas and eliminate the need for insulin injections. "This is the assault on the summit!"

For the first time, doctors appear to have restored fertility in a menopausal woman by reimplanting into her abdomen several pieces of her ovaries that had been removed and frozen when she was younger. The experimental procedure, performed on an American ballerina, could lead to greatly expanded reproductive options for women by allowing them to become pregnant years or decades later in life than is now possible, doctors said.

An Irvine-based marketing contractor for Mentor Corp., a Santa Barbara-based maker of silicone breast implants, agreed to pay $166,644 to settle Securities and Exchange Commission claims that he illegally traded on inside information. In November 2006, after learning that the Food and Drug Administration had approved the sale of Mentor's MemoryGel implants, Kent Barkouras, the largest shareholder and chief executive of closely held MyPrint Corp., bought options giving him the right to buy 546 Mentor shares at a set price, the SEC said.

Transmitting wireless signals directly into the brain, a group of scientists has produced the ultimate lab rat--an animal that can be guided by remote control over fences, up trees, through pipe and across rubble at distances up to a third of a mile. The researchers, from the State University of New York and Drexel University, say their work with brain implants ultimately could produce "robotic" rats that could be used for rescue missions, video surveillance or detecting explosives.

An Italian doctor and a U.S. researcher claim they will implant cloned human embryos in 200 female volunteers within the next few months, an effort that would mark the first known attempt at human cloning, and which is sure to complicate an already tangled debate in Congress over the procedure.

Shares of Staar Surgical Co. fell 13% on Monday after a Food and Drug Administration panel expressed concern about the company's experimental implanted lens for treating nearsightedness. On Friday, an FDA advisory panel recommended that the agency approve the device with several conditions, including longer-term patient follow-up exams. Members of the panel said they were troubled by cell loss in the cornea after surgery. The FDA usually follows its panel's advice.

Surgeons in Louisville, Ky., placed an artificial heart in a patient's chest Monday--the first fully self-contained artificial heart to be implanted in a human being. The patient, who was not identified by either name or gender, was believed by doctors to be within a month of death at the time of the operation and is not expected to survive more than a few weeks with the new titanium-and-plastic heart, which remains an experimental device.

Lucille Rinaudo says she has been in pain since 1986, when her jaw implant proved faulty. Rinaudo, 36, of Rochester, N.Y., says the device--installed to help ease problems caused by temporomandibular joint dysfunction, which hinders jaw movement--worsened her condition and caused serious side effects. "At times I feel like I'm on fire inside my head," she says. In 1989, the Food and Drug Administration investigated consumer complaints about jaw implants manufactured by Vitek Inc.

In a decision that could cost medical device manufacturers millions of dollars each year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that it has imposed a new rule requiring makers of implant devices to track patients who use their products. The rule, spurred by controversies surrounding the Bjork-Shiley heart valve and Dow Corning silicone breast implants, also affects makers of ventilators, breathing monitors and heartbeat regulators designed for use at home, the FDA said.