HOW THEY WORK
A QUICK LOOK AT SOME OF THE NEW TECHNOLOGIES
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1
Glucose-
monitoring
tattoos
1. A tattoo made up
of nanosensors—tiny
polymer beads con-
taining an orange-
yellow dye—is applied
to the skin, probably
once a week.
2. Using
a handheld device,
diabetics scan the
tattoo several times
a day. The tattoo
darkens when blood
sugar is low and
lights up when it is
high, enabling the
user to balance his or
her glucose levels.
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3
1
2
Artificial
retinas
1. A tiny video
camera in the
patient’s glasses
captures a scene.
2. The video is sent
via cable to a mini-
computer, where it
is transformed into
instructions that
are sent back to
the glasses.
3. The
instructions are sent
to an implant over the
patient’s damaged
retina.
4. The implant
emits signals, which
the brain interprets
as images.
immune system opens the door to a whole new kind of
treatment for people with other kinds of cancer,” says lead
investigator Philip Kantoff, M.D., the chief clinical research
officer at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and a
professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Although Provenge does not cure prostate cancer, the
vaccine reduced patients’ overall risk of death by 24 percent
in a three-year period in a recent multisite study. Reported
side effects—chills, fever, headache, joint aches, and back
pain—usually disappeared after a few days.
The drug was approved last year for patients with prostate cancers that have metastasized and have stopped responding to hormone treatments.
Magnets for depression relief
For folks who can’t pull out of depression with the help of
psychotherapy and medication, and who want to avoid the
seizures and memory loss associated with electroconvulsive therapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is
shaping up to be a less drastic blues buster. Cleared in 2008
for the treatment of major depression, the therapy uses
a small electromagnet, which is placed on the scalp right
behind the left forehead, and delivers a tiny electric current
to the part of the brain linked to depression.
It seems to work, though researchers aren’t certain how
or why: A 2008 study in the Archives of General Psychiatry
shows the therapy is almost three times more effective
than a placebo in easing depression. And beyond tingling
or slight pain in the scalp, the therapy has no serious side
effects. The FDA-approved treatment is currently available
in about 300 psychiatrists’ offices around the country, and
64 AARP THE MAGAZINE
it’s covered by a growing number of insurance companies.
Magnet therapy appears particularly helpful for older
adults, according to researcher Mark George, M.D., a psychiatrist and neurologist at the Medical University of South
Carolina in Charleston. That’s because many older patients
are sensitive to side effects from medication, and electroconvulsive therapy is not an option for frailer patients.
Safer heart-transplant delivery
Shipping a heart for transplant is a little like packing
beer for a road trip: Doctors pack the heart on ice in an
ordinary picnic cooler—just as they’ve done for decades—
before shipping it across town or across the country. But
the heart typically doesn’t work as well when it’s finally
transplanted in a new patient, in part because the heart’s
function declines when it’s not pumping blood. Explains
Abbas Ardehali, M. D., chair of cardiothoracic transplanta-
tion at the UCLA School of Medicine: “Our organs are not
meant to be on ice.”
Ardehali is leading part of a large, multicenter study of
a revolutionary new technology that keeps a heart beat-
ing while it’s transported from donor to recipient. Called
the warm blood perfusion system, it involves putting the
heart on a small heart-lung machine and supplying it with
the donor’s blood and a nutrient-enriched solution at nor-
mal body temperature. This keeps the heart healthy and
lengthens the time frame in which it can be used. In Europe,
where the process has been approved and used in about
120 patients, hearts have been kept beating for more than
ILLUSTRATIONS BY DANIEL MARSIGLIO
