Image-Guided Magnetic Catheter Navigation Brings Robotics to the Cath Lab

WASHINGTON -- Siemens Medical Solutions, Inc. unveiled the first digital imaging system that can work with magnetic navigation systems for interventional medicine at the Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) Conference held last month. The combination of Siemens' AXIOM Artis dFC Magnetic Navigation Imaging System and Stereotaxis' Magnetic Navigation Systems is expected to be uniquely capable of helping cardiologists improve the ease and accuracy of catheter-based procedures. A planned fully integrated, image-guided, computerized, magnetic navigation and control system is the result of Siemens' exclusive partnership with Stereotaxis, Inc., aimed at addressing problems associated with manual catheter steering and positioning.

"Cardiac catheterization procedures are up more than 50 percent in the past eight years," said Christos Kantemeridis, Artis dFC Magnetic Navigation product manager, Siemens Medical Solutions. "Cardiologists need solutions that are less invasive, easier to control and ultimately, more effective. Catheter-based procedures performed manually today can be very difficult and lengthy. This new method is designed to improve the efficiency and workflow of the cath lab and enable new cardiac applications."

Siemens' combines its most advanced digital fluoroscopic imaging system, the AXIOM Artis dFC Magnetic Navigation (Flat Panel Detector System), with Stereotaxis' magnetic navigation technology. The result is a system designed to remotely direct and digitally control catheter-based devices along complex paths within the body. The magnetic-tipped catheter device is controlled by magnets external to the body. This approach allows for 360-degree rotation of the catheter and is anticipated to provide greater precision and better movement than manual methods.

"I am confident that magnetic navigation during interventional cardiology procedures will prove extremely helpful, especially in tortuous anatomy and chronic total occlusions," said Gary L. Schaer, MD and director of cardiac catheterization laboratories at Rush-Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago.

The expectations are to integrate advanced fluoroscopic technology with remote catheter control, allowing the clinicians to better leverage the imaging information to ensure the catheter is positioned properly, without trial and error. The system fits into a standard cath lab room, and is designed to allow clinicians to perform the majority of the procedures remotely from the control room using a joystick. This addresses long-term radiation exposure concerns of clinicians working day-to-day in the cath lab.

Magnetic navigation has been undergoing clinical trials at various sites in the U.S., including Washington University's Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Mo., Rush Presbyterian Hospital Chicago and at the University of Oklahoma.

"I think that in the future what we are going to see is robotic-type devices in interventional cardiology" said Patrick Serruys, MD, PhD, professor of cardiology at the Thorax Center, Rotterdam, Netherlands "I think that, like the neurosurgeon and the surgeon, the interventional cardiologist will be performing procedures using robotics."

Source: PRNewswire

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