What’s hot in healthcare: Concussions top the most-Googled health searches

Cindy Krischer Goodman, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
·6 min read

Have a headache or feeling dizzy after hitting your head? Thinking of turning to Google to see if you have a concussion? Lots of Floridians are doing just that.

Floridians who turn to Dr. Google for medical information conducted more searches for concussions from June 2022 through June 2023 than any other injury, according to Personal injury attorneys Injured in Florida. The symptoms of concussions include confusion, headaches, dizziness, and nausea.

Also heavily searched: Sprained ankles and sprained wrists, mostly the result of falls. Floridians also searched Google to learn how to care for a burn. With burns, their severity level and ways to treat them varies so the search engine might bring up results that advise from cooling the burn with lukewarm running water to calling for medical help.

Nationally the most Googled injury was carpal tunnel syndrome, which happens when the median nerve in the wrist experiences pain, numbness and tingling in the hand and forearm.

A Google search may inform you that early symptoms can be relieved with simple measures like wearing a wrist splint while sleeping and doing exercises to keep the nerve mobile. More advanced carpal tunnel syndrome often requires surgery.

Overcoming HPV-related throat cancer

Traditionally, throat cancer had been considered smoking-related, but now cancer researchers estimate HPV causes about 70% of the cases in the United States — and it’s on the rise.

Doctors are opting for a new method with fewer side effects to treat the disease: robot-guided surgery that can help surgeons reach deep into the throat to remove tumors.

When a 56-year-old Fort Lauderdale man arrived in Dr. Ryan Sobol’s office with a lump on his neck, the Broward Health surgeon used this method, robotic technology, to remove his throat cancer.

The throat cancer, caused by a strain of HPV, had started in the man’s tonsil and spread to his left lymph node.

Aware of the increasing number of throat cancer patients, Sobel, director of head and neck surgery and oncology at Broward Health, has brought in the newest version of the da Vinci surgical robot to operate. It’s an even more advanced system than he had used to removed the neck tumor from the 56-year-old man, who was able to avoid chemotherapy and high-dose radiation. After Sobel removed his tumor, the man had six treatments of low-dose radiation and is now cancer free.

Sobel said Broward Health’s new single-port da Vinci robot surgical system, which arrived in May, allows him to reach narrow, previously hard-to-reach spaces, and go deeper into the back of the mouth and throat. The previous iteration had three robotic arms. “They came in from the side and limited our ability to access certain tumors,” he said.

“This is the most high-tech, minimally invasive approach we have to treat this type of cancer,” he said. “With throat cancer on the rise, we needed to adapt our approach to treat the amount of cases we are seeing.”

Sobel believes many Americans may not know they contracted HPV until it surfaces later in life.

“While it is technically a sexually transmitted disease, most aren’t even aware they’ve had the virus, and most don’t even have an active clinical infection from the virus. It just sits dormant in the tonsil tissue. Then, decades later, some people go on to develop tonsil or throat cancer.”

Warning signs of throat cancer are a persistent sore throat, difficulty swallowing, pain in the throat or neck, constant coughing, hoarseness, lumps in the neck or mouth and changes to the voice. Some people may experience weight loss or earaches.

An HPV vaccine is available and recommended for people between the ages of 9 and 26.

Local dermatologist creates high-tech scalpel

Imagine if the scalpel your surgeon uses already knows how and where to cut.

Delray Beach dermatologist Steven Hacker has invented and patented a smart scalpel that uses artificial intelligence to learn a surgeon’s approach and make a digital record. Hacker said he developed the scalpel through his Delray Beach company called Nano Surgical, which also invented and patented an illuminating device for scalpel handles called Lumohs.

Hacker said relying on and trying to interpret notes from a prior surgery is less helpful years later than if a surgeon could reference a map of the actual process that had been digitally recorded. His Electromagnetic Resonance Scalpel can teach doctors preferred surgical approaches and help surgeons treat recurrent cancer patients, he said.

The technology works the same way a tablet understands the position of a stylus, he explained. “Any doctor who holds a scalpel would benefit from this technology.”

While the smart scalpel is in the manufacturing stage, Hacker says he already is selling the Lumohs, a scalpel handle that lights surgical sites previously obscured with blind spots and shadows. That product is registered with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and ships to distributors in September. “We have thousands of them presold,” he said. “It has been a massive undertaking.”

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New hope for people with amyloidosis

A new $11.5 million gift to Florida Atlantic University may make it possible for people with amyloidosis to get some answers and possibly even a cure. Amyloidosis, while rare, involves abnormal protein (amyloid) building up in the tissues and organs throughout the body.

Boca Raton philanthropists Ann and John Wood have directed their gift to FAU’s Charles Schmidt College of Medicine to combat amyloidosis. Most often, amyloidosis affects the brain, manifesting as Alzheimer’s or brain bleeds that can become strokes.

With this donation, a team of researchers and clinicians from various institutes will work collectively to learn the root cause of formation of amyloid fibrils in the body. Dr. Michael Dobbs will become the inaugural chair and direct the initiatives to find a cure for amyloidosis.

“Amyloidosis in particular, is a disease that has personally impacted our family, and why we decided to invest in this initiative to usher in a new era to treat this disease, hopefully find a cure, and most importantly, provide patients with hope,” said Ann Wood, in a written statement.

Can a robot do a dental implant?

Dr. Alex Gruenberg, owner of Drill Dental Bar in Coral Springs and Boca Raton, says dental implants historically have been a timely process. Since getting the Yomi Robotic Dental System, he says the the process has turned from weeks to days..

Gruenberg says with the robot, he is places the implants digitally and is able to make changes as needed.

First, he maps out and customize a treatment plan in advance. During the procedure, if the patient moves, the robotic device adjusts itself while he maneuvers and performs the treatment with the robotic arm.

“Humans are imperfect,” Gruenberg notes. “We try our best, but nothing is better than the precision of computers, robotics and artificial intelligence.”

Because he is not making big incisions or flaps, patients are able to recover quicker with less swelling and pain.

Gruenberg says with the The Yomi robot, he can take on cases that other oral surgeons turn away. “We are able to position implants in much more delicate tissues and unorthodox areas,” he said. “It’s rare now to have a patient that is not a candidate for an implant.”

Cindy Goodman covers health for the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Send her your healthcare innovation news at cgoodman@sun-sentinel.com. Make sure to type What’s Hot in Healthcare in the subject line of your email.