BioCardia, a Silicon Valley firm, won FDA clearance for its Morph DNA catheter, a device developed to help with delivery of the company’s CardiAMP cell therapy into the heart. CardiAMP involves depositing a patient’s own bone marrow cells into heart tissue, with the intention of jump starting the body’s natural healing processes t (Read more...)
Tag: Cardiac Surgery
Fully Disposable Endovascular Robot Unveiled
Microbot Medical, a company with offices in Massachusetts and Israel, is about to release the world’s first fully disposable endovascular surgical robot. The LIBERTY device is intended for use in a variety of cardiovascular, neurovascular, and peripheral vascular procedures, manipulating catheters in a fly-by-wire way. Since it can be operate (Read more...)
Super-resolution Photoacoustic Microscopy to Find Clogged Blood Vessels
Researchers from Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea have developed a new photoacoustic imaging system that can visualize microvasculature without a contrast agent. The new system is 500 times faster than conventional photoacoustic imaging, and features a spatial resolution enhanced by 2.5 times. This system can one day help (Read more...)
Nanoparticles to Spot Vascular Calcification in Atherosclerosis
Atherosclerosis affects most of us by a certain age, and it is the underlying cause of most cardiovascular diseases. The condition results in arteries being coated with plaques and fatty deposits, as well as being chronically inflamed. While vascular constrictions aren’t good for anyone, it is the thrombi (blood clots) that detach from these (Read more...)
Exclusive with CELLINK Co-Founders Erik Gatenholm and Dr. Héctor Martínez
CELLINK is a 3D bioprinting company based in Gothenburg, Sweden, and was one of the first companies in the world to offer 3D printable bioink, which is used to print human organs and tissues. In just four years of existence, the company has been able to commercialize products used in more than 700 labs and […]
Robotic System for Deep Endovascular Instrument Guidance
Researchers at the Polytechnique Montréal Nanorobotics Laboratory in Canada have developed a new method to guide endovascular instruments into complex vascular structures that were hitherto inaccessible to endovascular surgeons. The technique involves moving the patient and the endovascular instrument using a robotic platform within a magnet (Read more...)
Protective Membrane for Pacemakers to Make Replacement Surgeries Easier
Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a cellulose membrane to cover and protect implantable devices, such as pacemakers. The material can reduce fibrotic build up and make subsequent surgical removal of implants much easier. So far, the pouch-like device has been tested successfully in pigs, and the researchers hope to apply for clinical trials (Read more...)
Omega FluoroShield FDA Cleared to Reduce Radiation Exposure
Omega Medical Imaging, a firm based in Sanford, Florida, has won FDA clearance for its FluoroShield technology, as well as the 2020 Cardiac Flat Panel Detector. FluoroShield automatically aims the radiation beam across the area of interest during interventional procedures utilizing fluoro or cine (short X-ray movies of the beating heart) imaging. T (Read more...)
Bioinspired Double-Sided Surgical Tape Rapidly Seals Tissues Together
Researchers at MIT have developed an adhesive tape that can quickly seal wounds and bind tissues together, potentially even binding implantable medical devices to a target site. The researchers hope that the tape could eventually replace surgical sutures, which have a variety of limitations. “There are over 230 million major surgeries all aro (Read more...)
3D Printed Cells and Bioinks for Making Implantable Blood Vessels
Researchers based in South Korea and Hong Kong have developed a method to create biomimetic blood vessels by directly 3D printing vascular cells and bioinks containing collagen and vascular tissue extracellular matrix components. The resulting constructs closely mimic natural blood vessels, suggesting that such techniques could pave the way for cus (Read more...)
New Medical 3D Printer Unveiled by B9Creations
B9Creations, a company out of Rapid City, South Dakota, is releasing its B9 Core Med 500 medical printer, a device based on the popular B9 Core Series line of devices. The company is already well established in the dentistry field with its high precision 3D printers, but it’s now also forming a new healthcare division […]
Tiny Medical Imaging Sensor Sets Guinness World Record
OmniVision Technologies, a Santa Clara, California firm, just announced that it has won the Guinness World Record for “The Smallest Commercially Available Image Sensor”. The OV6948 sensor was designed for use in catheters and endoscopes, allowing these devices to be as small as possible while also providing high quality imaging from wit (Read more...)
Medtronic Launches Evolut Pro+ TAVR System: Interview with Dr. Pieter Kappetein
Last month, Medtronic announced receipt of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for and launch of the Evolut Pro+ TAVR (Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement) System to treat patients with symptomatic severe aortic stenosis. Aortic stenosis is characterized by stiff, often thickened aortic valve leaflets that struggle to open and close (Read more...)
FDA Clears geko Muscle Pump Activator to Prevent VTE
Venous thromboembolism (VTE) too often strikes bedridden patients in the hospital, and this is one of the main reasons that patients are put back on their feet as soon as possible. Inflatable wraps placed around the legs, which can raise the pressure, are a common way to prevent the condition. Now, a device called geko […]
Low Power MRI Helps Image Lungs, Brings Costs Down
Modern clinical MRIs usually have magnetic field strengths of 1.5 or 3.0 Tesla. These are pretty powerful magnets and it’s the reason that these devices are very expensive. While such strengths have been standard for a long time, the internal hardware and software beyond the magnets have been improving steadily. Now, researchers affiliated wi (Read more...)
Gore CARDIOFORM ASD Cleared in Europe for Atrial Septal Defects
Gore won the European CE Mark for its GORE CARDIOFORM ASD Occluder, a device designed for percutaneous, transcatheter closure of ostium secundum atrial defects (ASDs). The occluder recently completed a clinical study involving 125 patients with ASD, ranging from 2 to 84 years of age, all of whom were successfully implanted with the GORE CARDIOFORM (Read more...)
Laser Activated Gold Nanorods Create Silk Seal for Incisions and Wounds
Staples and sutures are currently used to seal soft tissues together in clinical practice, but researchers at Arizona State University have come up with an alternative technique that resembles welding. It may end up being used to seal tissues during surgeries and to treat wounds, and in many cases simply to enhance the effectiveness of […]
Apps for Healthcare Monitoring: Interview with Artem Petrov, CEO of Reinvently
Reinvently, a mobile app development company based in Palo Alto, California, has created a number of healthcare apps, including those which collect, collate, and display data from wearable medical devices. The combination of a wearable device and a mobile app allows clinicians to monitor their patients in real-time and identify issues before they b (Read more...)
Hydrogel Mimics of Heart Tissue to Study Cardiac Reshaping Following Aortic Valve Implantation
Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) procedures have become a popular way of treating aortic valve stenosis, a condition in which the valve stiffens and worsens cardiac function. Following implantation of a prosthetic valve, the hearts of patients tend to undergo significant reconstruction around the treatment site, but the mechanics of th (Read more...)
Early Bird, an Internal Bleeding Detector, Now Available In U.S.
Saranas, a Houston, Texas firm, is releasing its novel Early Bird bleeding monitoring system in the United States, following FDA de novo approval of the device. Intended for use during minimally invasive vascular procedures, the Early Bird helps to identify dangerous events such as ruptured or dissected vessels. Such incidents can result from using (Read more...)