Jon George Studies have shown that robotic percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with the CorPath GRX System (Corindus, now part of Siemens Healthineers)—compared with manual PCI—reduces radiation exposure to the cath lab staff and may also improve precision. Furthermore, during the current pandemic, it potentially could help to reduce contact with COVID-19 patients [...]
Michael Kiernan Physicians recognised the importance of remote management for heart failure patients long before the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the current situation has heightened the urgency of the transition for this vulnerable population. In this commentary, Michael Kiernan reviews how remote monitoring of heart failure patients could help to reduce heart failure [...]
Stroke is the second leading cause of mortality and the third leading cause of adult disability in the USA, causing severe long-term impairments in the lives of survivors. While the two kinds of stroke—ischaemic (85%) and haemorrhagic (15%)—differ in their origins, both culminate in compromised blood supply and subsequent brain ischaemia. This results in [...]
Ron Solar Ron Solar (ThermopeutiX, San Diego, USA) and colleagues report in EuroIntervention that the TwinFlo catheter (ThermopeutiX), in pigs, was associated with rapid, selective, deep cerebral hypothermia. They add that the catheter may “offer an improved method for neuroprotection during neurosurgery, cardiac arrest, acute stroke, and other ischaemic insult”. Solar talks [...]
In January this year, Abbott made history when it became the first company in the world to receive market approval for a transcatheter mitral valve implantation (TMVI) device. Its Tendyne system now has a CE-mark indication for the management of patients with mitral regurgitation who cannot undergo mitral valve surgery or percutaneous edge-to-edge repair [...]
Jolanda Kluin (Credit: BHF) A soft robotic heart that is designed to replace the need for a heart transplant is one of four research projects that have made the shortlist for the Big Beat Challenge initiative—organised by the British Heart Foundation—that awards £30m to a project that seeks to identify a real-world [...]
Leonid Sternik Append Medical, with their novel left atrial appendage (LAA) closure device (Appligator), were a finalist in the 2019 ICI Innovation Award Competition (Innovation in Cardiovascular Interventions 2019; 8–10 December, Tel Aviv, Israel). In this commentary, Leonid Sternik who came up with the concept for the device, outlines the need for [...]
Patrick M McCarthy Last month, Abbott announced that that the FDA has approved a new trial—REPAIR MR—to evaluate the safety and efficacy of percutaneous edge-to-edge repair (MitraClip) for the management of patients with primary mitral regurgitation at moderate surgical risk. Currently, in both Europe and the USA, MitraClip has market approval for [...]
Mark Peretti Gore’s augmented reality (AR) experience app, which is available on both Apple and Android platforms, provides interactive 3D holograms of the company’s endovascular devices, such as the Excluder conformable abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) endoprosthesis, and is designed to be used as a high-res, anatomically correct visual aid that can be [...]
Malcolm Finlay Johnny, a 72-year-old film producer, is meeting clients when his watch gently vibrates notifying him of his irregular pulse. He pressed his finger to his strap, and with a swipe sends the single lead ECG to his cardiologist without pausing the meeting. The artificial intelligence (AI) delivered backbone powering self-diagnostics [...]
Julian Paton Erin O’Callaghan (School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, Biomedical Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK) and others report in the Journal of Physiology that enhancing respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) improved cardiac function in rats with induced heart failure. They note that this finding gives a “tantalising demonstration of the physiological [...]
Miguel Angel Cobos Gil Miguel Angel Cobos Gil (Instituto Cardiovascular, Hospital Clinico San Carlos, Madrid, Spain) outlines in Annals of Internal Medicine a novel method of using the Apple Watch to record a multilead, quasi-standard ECG. He reports that the method is feasible but that a “broad range of clinical studies are [...]
Max Y Emmert At the 2019 European Association of Cardio-Thoracic Surgeons (EACTS) annual meeting (3–5 October, Lisbon, Portual), Max Y Emmert (Institute for Regenerative Medicine, University of Zurich, Switzerland/the Department for Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery, German Heart Center Berlin and Charite Berlin, Germany) received the Techno-College Innovation Award for the LifeMatrix, a [...]
S Jay Mathews The TASTE and TOTAL studies suggested that routine thombus aspiration in patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) did not provide mortality benefit and may increase the risk of stroke. However, a new study (CHEETAH) is evaluating whether a next-generation aspiration catheter could lead to improved outcomes. S Jay Mathews [...]
Richard Houlihan For those involved in the MedTech industry, unless you have been living under a rock, you will know about the new European medical device regulation (MDR). Furthermore, you will know that Eudamed is at the core of the MDR. However, to recap, MDR-Eudamed is where specific medical device economic operators [...]
Michael Jaff Boston Scientific recently announced that vascular medicine specialist Michael R Jaff (Newton-Wellesley Hospital, Newton, USA) will be joining the company as vice president, clinical affairs, innovation and technology, peripheral interventions. His role will involve, according to Boston Scientific, leading clinical and medical affairs strategies to support the development and commercialisation [...]
Tom Oxley Synchron recently announced the first successful implant of its minimally-invasive neural interface technology (Stentrode) as part of a trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of the technology for restoring communication in people with severe paralysis. The technology uses modular training software (BrainOs) to control assistive technologies through thought. The company’s [...]
Jeffrey B Jump In a move to improve the safety of medical devices, in May 2017, the European Union (EU) announced a series of new Medical Device Regulations (MDR) and these are due to come into full force in May next year (2020). These new regulations will not only affect new products [...]
Carsten Tschöpe At the 2019 European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress (31 August–4 September, Paris, France), Carsten Tschöpe (Charité Hospital, Berlin, Germany) outlined the use of the “Propella” approach in myocarditis patients with cardiogenic shock. He explained that the approach involves the prolonged use of an Impella heart pump (Abiomed) to provide [...]
Atman Shah Virtual patient care is creating exciting learning opportunities for interventional cardiologists. Atman P. Shah considers how training through gaming can deliver a state-of-the-art profession. Recently, I was between patients, with a few minutes to spare. I opened an app on my phone designed for practising cardiology cases and began to [...]
Ashok Seth The Myval transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) system, designed and manufactured by Meril Lifesciences in India, recently received the CE mark for the management of severe aortic stenosis. In this commentary, Ashok Seth discusses his experience with the Myval system, and the recent MyVal-1 study, one-year data of which he [...]
Thanks to the use of robotics in healthcare, many procedures that were once highly invasive are now being performed using minimally invasive techniques, with the added benefits of precision and radiation protection. Jean Fajadet looks at how the technology works, and what it can bring to the cath lab. Medical robotics has become a useful [...]