Editor's note: The previously posted story should have stated that the 66-year-old patient was discharged from Zannos Grekos practice and appeared still sedated and was carried into her home, where her condition worsened and she was hospitalized. Tests revealed significant brain swelling. The story has been corrected below. K.K.Yankopolus Photo by Allie Garza Dr. Zannos Grekos, a cardiologist whose practice is in Bonita Springs, speaks with a seminar attendant after one of his educational seminars about stem cell treatment, using one's own stem cells, for treating heart disease and other medical conditions, on Monday, March 14, 2011, at the Collier County Library. Allie Garza/Staff FORT MYERS _ A Fort Myers physician has rejected a settlement agreement with state regulators over his role in a stem cell treatment with a patient who later died. The deal that Dr. Konstantine Yankopolus turned down had him paying a fine of $25,000 and the state Department of Health's case expenses of $12,200. He would have been on probation for two years with another physician indirectly supervising him. Yankopolus, who has a primary-care practice in Fort Myers, assisted Dr. Zannos Grekos in March with the controversial stem cell treatment on a 77-year-old Indiana man, according … Continue reading →

A motor tiny enough to fit through the vessels of the brain but with the power of a small kitchen appliance could revolutionise the treatment of strokes, its Australian developers say. At only 250 microns wide, the micromotor is about the width of a human hair and the size of a grain of salt. It is the world's strongest micromotor, with the equivalent driving power of a small kitchen appliance, according to a team from Melbourne's RMIT University and the Royal Melbourne Hospital. It was developed with the aim of treating strokes caused by blocked arteries, and cerebral aneurysms from weaknesses in brain arteries, in patients who can't be helped with standard surgical equipment. The hospital's Associate Professor Bernard Yan said current neurointervention procedures were unsuccessful approximately 15 per cent of the time. Microcatheters of flexible plastic with permanently bent tips were used to navigate through a patient's arteries and into their brain to reach the target, he said. 'The process is akin to navigating wet paper tubes with a half-boiled piece of spaghetti, and because the current tools are not flexible to guide through the tiny brain vessels, it can on rare occasion lead to puncturing an artery which … Continue reading →

A motor tiny enough to fit through the vessels of the brain but with the power of a small kitchen appliance could revolutionise the treatment of strokes, its Australian developers say. At only 250 microns wide, the micromotor is about the width of a human hair and the size of a grain of salt. It is the world's strongest micromotor, with the equivalent driving power of a small kitchen appliance, according to a team from Melbourne's RMIT University and the Royal Melbourne Hospital. It was developed with the aim of treating strokes caused by blocked arteries, and cerebral aneurysms from weaknesses in brain arteries, in patients who can't be helped with standard surgical equipment. The hospital's Associate Professor Bernard Yan said current neurointervention procedures were unsuccessful approximately 15 per cent of the time. Microcatheters of flexible plastic with permanently bent tips were used to navigate through a patient's arteries and into their brain to reach the target, he said. "The process is akin to navigating wet paper tubes with a half-boiled piece of spaghetti, and because the current tools are not flexible to guide through the tiny brain vessels, it can on rare occasion lead to puncturing an artery which … Continue reading →