Foot Blog News - Issue 20 – July 2007



Study says Vioxx danger begins earlier than stated

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The increased heart risk from Vioxx, Merck & Co’s withdrawn arthritis medicine, begins much earlier than after 18 months of use, according to a study that contradicts assertions by the drug maker and its scientists.The 2,434-patient study, published on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, was halted early when the medicine was pulled from the market in September 2004.

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Shock Wave Therapy Useful For Stress Fractures


MNT- Extracorporeal shock wave therapy (ESWT), a noninvasive technique that uses sound waves to stimulate healing, is an effective way to treat resistant stress fractures in athletes, according to a report of five cases in the American Journal of Sports Medicine.

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Man Infected With Flesh Eating Bacteria While Swimming In The Sea Off Texas

MNT- A 58 year old man who swam in the sea while on holiday in Galveston, Texas, risks losing a leg, and maybe his life, after being infected by the flesh-eating bacterium Vibrio vulnificus.

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Integra lifesciences features the advansys mid and hind foot plating systems at upcoming american orthopaedic foot and ankle society meeting, July 13-15, 2007

HSMN News Feed- PLAINSBORO, N.J., July 11, 2007 — Integra LifeSciences Holdings Corporation (NasdaqGS:IART ) announced that it will be featuring the Advansys(TM) Mid and Hind Foot Plating Systems at the 23rd Annual Summer Meeting of the American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society Summer Meeting (AOFAS), Toronto, Ontario, Canada, July 13-15, 2007. The Advansys(TM) Mid and Hind Foot Plating Systems have an FDA clearance in the United States and a CE Mark Certification in the European Union. The Advansys(TM) systems were designed with the help of W. Hodges Davis, M.D., Bruce Cohen, M.D., Bob Anderson, M.D. and Carroll Jones, M.D., all practicing physicians with OrthoCarolina in Charlotte, North Carolina.

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Biomimetic therapeutics’ clinical investigator presents positive interim data on u.s. and canadian foot and ankle clinical trials

HSMN News Feed-FRANKLIN, Tenn.–BioMimetic Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: BMTI ) today announced interim results from its 20 patient U.S. pilot clinical trial and its 60 patient Canadian registration trial assessing the safety and efficacy of GEM OS®1 Bone Graft in foot and ankle fusion indications. Sheldon Lin, M.D., one of the U.S. clinical investigators, presented the results today at the American Orthopedic Foot and Ankle Society (AOFAS) meeting in Toronto, Canada. The U.S. pilot study is a randomized (2:1 GEM OS1:ABG, respectively), prospective, controlled study, conducted in accordance with an approved Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) comparing GEM OS1 to autogenous bone graft (ABG), which is considered the current gold standard bone graft and requires procuring bone from the patient’s own body..

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Robotic ankle unveiled

WDSU.com- Researchers in Rhode Island unveil the first robotic ankle for amputees. It’s the first device to actually provide power for walking.

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Older Adults Are Not Walking Enough


MNT- Care staff could improve older psychiatric inpatients’ physical health and general well-being by encouraging them to walk more.This is the finding of Brendon Stubbs and Samantha Cooper-Evans, from St Andrews Healthcare who presented their research at the British Psychological Society’s PSIGE Annual Conference on Thursday 5 July 2007 being held at the University of Nottingham.

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 Roller shoe injuries are light, but may be underreported
USA Today- First it was bicycles, skateboards and inline roller skates that gave children new ways to glide through childhood. Now it’s roller shoes — a shoe with built-in wheels. And like their wheeled predecessors, occasionally the shoes give children new ways to hurt themselves.

About 1,600 injuries resulted from the use of roller shoes in 2006, according to data released in June by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. On paper, that makes roller shoes one of the less dangerous activities for children.

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Walking With A Computer Chip In Your Body

MNT- On Tuesday July 17th the 91st International Four Days Marches start in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Last year two people died during the Marches with about 43,000 entrants the world’s largest walking event due to the extreme heat. Also, ambulances and hospitals in and around Nijmegen could hardly cope with the number of fainting and suffering walkers. This year professor Maria Hopman (Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre) starts scientific research on the reactions of the human body to the exertion of walking. She does so by using a special pill, with a chip in it.

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Payless recalls toddler clog-style shoes

CTV.ca- Canadian Press-TORONTO – Payless ShoeSource is recalling about 3,000 toddler-size clog shoes sold in Canada because of a risk that the plastic rivets that attach the back strap can detach, posing a choking hazard to young children.

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When It Comes To Walking, It’s All Good
MNT- These days, it’s easy for people to get confused about exercise — how many minutes a day should they spend working out, for how long and at what exertion level? Conflicting facts and opinions abound, but one Mayo Clinic physician says the bottom line is this: walking is good, whether the outcome measurement is blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, joint problems or mental health.

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Diabetes News