Eye-Tracking Tool Might Quickly Spot Stroke

By Amanda Gardner

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, March 5 (HealthDay News) -- The key to correctly diagnosing when a case of dizziness is just vertigo or a life-threatening stroke may be surprisingly simple: a pair of goggles that measures eye movement at the bedside in as little as one minute, a new study contends.

"This is the first study demonstrating that we can accurately discriminate strokes and non-strokes using this device," said Dr. David Newman-Toker, lead author of a paper on the technique that is published in the April issue of the journal Stroke.

Some 100,000 strokes are misdiagnosed as something else each year in the United States, resulting in 20,000 to 30,000 deaths or severe physical and speech impairments, the researchers said.

As with heart attacks, the key to treating stroke and potentially saving a person's life is speed. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the current gold standard for assessing stroke, can take up to six hours to complete and costs $1,200, said Newman-Toker, who is an associate professor of neurology and otolaryngology at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

Sometimes people don't even get as far as an MRI, and may be sent home with a first "mini stroke" that is followed by a devastating second stroke, he added.

The new study findings come with some significant caveats, however.

For one thing, the study was a small one, involving only 12 patients.

"It is impossible for a small study to prove 100 percent accuracy," said Dr. Daniel Labovitz, director of the Stern Stroke Center at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City, who was not involved with the study. About 4 percent of dizziness cases in the emergency room are caused by stroke.

The other caveat is that the device is not yet approved in the United States for diagnosing stroke. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration only recently gave it approval for use in assessing balance. It has been available in Europe for that purpose for about a year.

The device -- known as a video-oculography machine -- is a modification of a "head impulse test," which is used regularly for people with chronic dizziness and other inner ear-balance disorders.

"There are 500 otolaryngologists and 4 million dizzy patients in the U.S. alone," Newman-Toker said. "We [otolaryngologists] can't see everybody and [emergency room physicians] can't easily be trained to develop expertise in eye movement interpretation."

"Now we have a device that can do it for them," he added.

The test is simple to perform: Wearing a pair of goggles hooked up to a webcam and special software, the patient is asked to focus on one spot on the wall while the doctor moves the patient's head from side to side.

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New Strain of Norovirus Spreading Quickly in U.S.

Jan. 24, 2013 -- The flu is not the only highly contagious disease raging this winter.

A new strain of norovirus is causing intestinal illness outbreaks across the country, the CDC confirmed today.  

Norovirus is often to blame when large numbers of people get sick on cruise ships or in schools, nursing homes, and other places where people live, work, or play in close quarters.

CDC officials also reported a rise in outbreaks of sickness caused by drinking raw milk.

The findings appear in the Jan. 25 issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The new norovirus strain was first identified in Australia in March of last year, and it had spread across the United States by year’s end.

Of the 266 norovirus outbreaks reported during the last four months of 2012, 141 involved the Australian strain. During this time, outbreaks caused by it rose from 19% to 58%.

Sickness from norovirus is often called "food poisoning," but the highly contagious virus can also be spread by water, person-to-person contact, or simply by touching an infected object.

Outbreaks can happen anytime, but they are most common in the winter months.

A norovirus outbreak late last week that involved 300 children at an Arkansas middle school was not caused by the newer strain. But one that happened during a Christmas sailing of the luxury cruise ship Queen Mary 2 was, says Jan Vinje, PhD, who heads the National Calicivirus Laboratory at the CDC.

CDC epidemiologist Aron Hall says it may not be clear for several months if more people are getting sick or more outbreaks are occurring as a result of the new strain.

“We see new strains emerge every few years and sometimes they are associated with increased disease activity,” he says. “We certainly want people to be aware that this potential exists, but the mainstays of norovirus prevention are still the most important things people can do to protect themselves.”

He suggests these strategies to prevent infection:

Wash your hands often.Disinfect surfaces.Avoid preparing food or caring for others when you're sick.Keep your hands away from your face as much as possible.

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