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Nuts, Bolts & Nuclear Medicine by Yael Li-Ron New procedures that do a better job of healing what ails us, and do so with less medieval methods, are promising to make health care much more appealing and a lot less scary. Here are a few examples: Forget screws and pins in your bones. A synthetic bone implant made of a bio-compatible material called hydroxyapatite (developed at MIT) aims to replace the kind of metallic solutions that can set off alarms at the airport. As an alternative to orally administered steroids given to patients suffering from hearing loss, a new, more effective procedure delivers the drug directly to the affected area via a thin micro-catheter called the IntraEAR (www.intraear.com). Recurring tonsil infections can be a thing of the past without the traditional tonsillectomy (surgery to remove the tonsils). A microwave tonsillectomy is a procedure that "nukes" the tonsils with radio waves, shrinking them to about 60 percent of their size. Formerly a mainland hypochondriac, writer Yael Li-Ron (www.tipx.com) enjoys great health since she moved to Hawaii. Her interest in medical research, and genetic engineering in particular, started a few years ago when a close friend was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
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