Creo Medical Group out of Chepstow in South Wales won clearance from the FDA for its Speedboat RS2 device and CROMA platform for endoscopic removal of cancerous and pre-cancerous lesions in the bowel. This was one of the fastest FDA reviews of a 510(k) cleared medical device to date, with the company receiving the answer 49 days [… (Read more...)
Tag: GI
Growing and Testing Drugs on Dozens of Tiny Guts at Once
In a demonstration of where the field of organ-on-a-chip technology is inevitably going, MIMETAS, a company developing organ-on-chip technology out of Leiden, The Netherlands, and Roche, the giant pharmaceutical company, teamed up to grow and test 350 perfused gut tubes within a matter of days. The gut tubes replicate the basic structure of an (Read more...)
Micromotors Powered by Stomach Acids Lower pH, Safely Release Antibiotics
Researchers at University of California San Diego have developed tiny micromotors that propel themselves around the stomach, neutralizing the acids within, eventually releasing a cargo of drugs once the pH is at a desired level. This approach can change how antibiotics and other pH sensitive drugs are delivered, as currently proton pump inhibitors (Read more...)
Pop-up Soft Robotic Arm for Endoscopic Procedures
Researchers at Harvard have developed a soft robotic arm that can lie flat when housed inside an endoscope as it travels through narrow passages in the body, but can pop-up when it needs to be used to manipulate tissues. Endoscopes are flexible probes used by surgeons that can travel through narrow passages in the body […]
EndoSwab Helps Verify Cleanliness of Reusable Endoscopes
Endoscopes are hard to clean due to all the little crevices where pathogens can hide, and this has led to quite a bit of controversy in the last couple of years. While more attention has been bestowed on this problem, there’s still a lot of work left to do to improve cleaning procedures, as a recent […]
Flourish Magnetic Device for Non-Surgical Treatment of Esophageal Atresia
The FDA is now allowing the introduction of Cook Medical‘s Flourish Pediatric Esophageal Atresia Anastomosis device as a non-surgical option for treatment of esophageal atresia, a birth defect in which the esophagus is not connected to the stomach due to a poorly formed esophagus. Two catheters with magnetic tips are positioned at the en (Read more...)
Flex Robotic System, a Snake to Navigate Colon for Transanal Endoscopic Procedures
Medrobotics out of Raynham, Massachusetts won FDA 510(k) clearance to introduce its Flex Robotic System for performing colorectal endoscopic procedures. Heralding the future we live in, the robotic snake is inserted transannally and is then steered using a 3D joystick to the treatment site. It can take on different shapes, depending on the pat (Read more...)
Cook Medical’s New Acrobat 2 Calibrated Tip Wire Guide for Accessing Pancreatic and Bile Ducts
Cook Medical is releasing its new Acrobat 2 calibrated tip wire guide for navigating the pancreatic and bile ducts during cholangio-endoscopic procedures. The device has a 5.8 cm hydrophilic coated flexible tip that helps to move through difficult anatomy, while rotational rigidity allows it to offer a 1:1 “torqueability” for preci (Read more...)
Olympus Releases New Endotherapy Tools in U.S.
At the Digestive Disease Week event in Chicago this week, Olympus is releasing a few endoscopic devices including the SB Knife monopolar ESD (Endoscopic Submucosal Dissection) knife and two new sphincterotomes, the CleverCut3V Distal Wireguided Oblique Tip and the CleverCut3V Distal Wireguided Short Bend Tip. The SB Knife is designed to r (Read more...)
Interscope EndoRotor Now Cleared in U.S. as New Way to Remove Colon Lesions
Interscope, a company out of Worcester, MA, landed FDA clearance for its EndoRotor device that, in a single step, dissects, resects, and retrieves mucosal lesions within the GI tract. In the U.S. the device is indicated for use within the colon, shaving off diseased mucosa in conjunction with endoscopic mucosal resectiont (EMR), and sucking up [&he (Read more...)
Multi-Modality Imaging Probe to Diagnose Cancer Inside Body, Help Avoid Biopsies
These days, identifying cancerous tissue within the body requires a biopsy and a review of the extracted sample in a pathology lab. A team of German scientists have been working toward a way of spotting tumors using an endoscopic approach that doesn’t involve actually having to take samples. They’ve developed a multi-modality laser-base (Read more...)
GORE VIATORR TIPS Endoprosthesis for Transjugular Intrahepatic Portosystemic Shunt Procedures Gets FDA Approval
W. L. Gore & Associates, better known simply as Gore, received FDA approval and is making available in the U.S. its for its GORE VIATORR TIPS Endoprosthesis with Controlled Expansion. It’s intended for Transjugular Intrahepatic Portosystemic Shunt (TIPS) procedures that link the portal vein to the hepatic vein to reduce the port (Read more...)
Ingestible Medical Devices Powered by Gastric Fluids
Scientists have been attempting to produce practical ingestible electronics for years, and now researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, may have figured out how to power them using surrounding fluids in the gut. Previously developed ingestible electronics typically use batteries that contain materials that, if leaked, are tox (Read more...)
Fidmi Medical’s Feeding Tube System Requires Fewer Changes, Easier on Patients
Fidmi Medical, a company based in Misgav, Israel, has developed a new enteral feeding device that overcomes some of the limitations, downsides, and hassles of existing solutions. Feeding tubes have to be changed every few months to prevent clogging, address dislogdgements, and get ahead of the device breaking up. The PEG (percutaneous endoscopic ga (Read more...)
EIZO’s New 8MP 58-Inch RadiForce Monitor and Large Monitor Manager
EIZO received FDA clearance and is releasing a new 58-inch 8 megapixel (3840 x 2160) LCD monitor for use in operating rooms, as well as a Large Monitor Manager that can receive video from different sources to display on the big screen. The high resolution combined with the large size of the screen allow multiple high-definition images and vide (Read more...)