Corindus Vascular Robotics has announced that a study submitted by a physician user of the company’s CorPath System will be presented at the Cardiovascular Research Technologies (CRT) conference on Monday, 23 February, 2015, in Washington, DC, USA. The study, led by Paul T Campbell, Carolinas Medical Center Northeast, explores the stent savings made possible when robotic percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is leveraged for the measurement of anatomy in place of the conventional, manual methods of measurement.
“Improving accuracy in stent selection through robotic-assisted measurement can help physicians avoid longitudinal geographic miss and potentially improve clinical outcomes for patients,” said Campbell. “It also reduces the need for additional stents, delivering procedural cost-savings to hospitals. The combination of radiation safety and precision available through the use of robotics in interventional cardiology provides advancements that can significantly benefit cath lab physicians.”
The issue of inaccurate measurement of lesions was recently the highlight of an article published in Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions, which evaluated the accuracy of interventional cardiologists utilising visual estimation to determine lesion length. “Interoperator and intraoperator (in)accuracy of stent selection based on visual estimation,” of which Campbell was also an author, found that visual estimation of lesion length for PCI had a high degree of variability—potentially contributing to inappropriate stent selection and increasing patients’ risk of restenosis. The study concluded that patient outcomes may benefit from improvements in lesion length measurement and stent selection.
“The CorPath system was designed to empower physicians in the cath lab—starting with their personal health and safety through protection from harmful radiation exposure, and by enhancing their clinical capability by utilising robotic precision,” said David Handler, president and chief executive officer, Corindus Vascular Robotics. “Sub-millimetre measurement capability and enhanced visualisation, combined with CorPath’s radiation-shielding, helps physicians treat their patients and protect their own well-being.”
The CorPath system is the first FDA-cleared medical device to bring robotic-assistance to coronary angioplasty procedures. It enables physicians to perform procedures while seated in a lead-lined interventional cockpit protected from radiation exposure. CorPath allows cardiologists to advance stents and guidewires millimetre-by-millimetre using digital controls.
