The Asan Medical Center has adopted the cutting-edge Gamma knife device, “Perfexion” for its Gamma Knife Center. The center, which has recently marked 5,000 cases of operation for the first time in the nation, said the device will enhance accuracy and sophistication in the surgery room. Gamma Knife is a radiosurgical treatment that delivers a dose of gamma radiation to the target with surgical ...

Elonva, infertility treatment by MSD-Korea, the Korean branch of the Merck & Co., gained the Korea Food and Drug Administration’s approval last week, the company said Monday. The follitropin beta (gene recombination)-based injection was proven effective for controlled ovarian stimulation (COS) on women receiving assisted reproductive technology. The drug can replace the seven-session injection ...

Seoul National University Hospital’s Parkinson Center said Monday it has developed an original DBS Electrode Location Analysis System to treat Parkinson’s disease and will provide an international service online at http://delas.ondemand3d.com. The DELAS method involves transplantation of a 1.27 millimeter-thin electrode to the focus of the brain and providing constant electrostimulation to it. T...

A low-fat diet will help you lose weight. Or is it a low-carbohydrate diet? Pore over decades of research and dozens of studies over this debate and you’re likely to be confused about the best way to go about reducing your waistline. “I think lowering carbs is what you should do,” says Heather Straight, a Pleasant Hill, California, mom of three who says she’s tried several diets. “At least, I th...

By Kee Chang-won, MD, Ph.D. Glaucoma is an eye disorder in which the optic nerve suffers damage, permanently impacting vision and progressing to complete blindness if untreated. Glaucoma has been nicknamed the “silent thief of sight” because the loss of vision normally occurs gradually over a long period of time. Once lost, this damaged visual field cannot be recovered. Worldwide, it is the se...

CONCORD, New Hampshire (AP) ― Labor pain is nothing to laugh at. Yet. The use of nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, during childbirth fell out of favor in the United States decades ago, and just two hospitals ― one in San Francisco and one in Seattle ― still offer it. But interest in returning the dentist office staple to the delivery room is growing: respected hospitals including Dartmouth-Hitchc...

South Korea will temporarily allow local dairy farms to increase milk production to counter shortfalls caused by the culling of dairy cows due to the recent foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreak, the farm ministry said Tuesday. The move calls for production quotas to be raised by 5 percent for the next two years to help boost supply and preempt price hikes that can exacerbate inflationary concer...

South Korea confirmed an additional case of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in the country's central region on Tuesday, though nationwide vaccinations and quarantine efforts are having some effect on containing the disease. The additional case at a pig farm in Yesan, 134 kilometers south of Seoul, brings the total number of confirmed FMD outbreaks to 121, since animals started showing symptoms in l...

Fast-aging Korea could see a deficit of 16 trillion won ($14 billion) in its medical insurance financing by 2020, a report warned Monday. Without “fundamental change” in the overall system, the deficit would continue to swell in the coming years, the Institute for National Health Insurance, an affiliate of the National Health Insurance Corporation, said in its mid- and long-term financial report...