MEDICA 2021 – New Technological Discoveries

iData’s Update on MEDICA 2021 – Day Two

iData Research is honored to be a part of MEDICA 2021, the World Forum for Medicine –  International Trade Fair.

On day two of MEDICA 2021, Sam Habibi, iData’s European Representative, attended conferences and forums across many medical device disciplines. The sheer attendance of the global medical device community at MEDICA 2021 is both humbling and exciting, especially when discovering new technological innovations.

Innovations in The Cardiovascular Segment

After a morning review with Sam, a topic brought up by MEDICA sparked some interesting conversation in our Vancouver office: catheter robots in the cardiovascular segment. As discussed in MEDICA’s interview with Prof. Constantin von zur Mühlen, robots in the operating room are no longer uncommon in certain medical fields – they provide support, relieve doctors, and increase efficiency through artificial intelligence (AI). However, robotics have not made their way into the operating room during cardiological interventions – until now. 

Within the cardiac catheterization lab, the cardiac catheter robot acts as an additional arm that can be manipulated over the examination table. Inside this arm is a sterile cartridge holding motors and gears that operate the catheter when the examination is complete, or wires over which stents and balloons are pushed. This operation allows the doctor to sit outside the control room and operate the cartridges through joysticks, thus moving the wires, catheters, or the balloons under X-ray control. These cardiac catheter robots can be used for any sort of coronary vessel imaging, most often when implanting a stent. 

The benefits to cardiac catheter robots? The device protects the examiner from the triggers of X-ray radiation while eliminating the need for shields, further reducing the risk of orthopaedic problems from the shield weight. As for patient advantages, being joystick-controlled, the cardiac catheter robot works precisely under the control of the examiner, almost eliminating the object of human error. Additionally, these robot devices use artificial intelligence that can be incorporated during interventions. An example provided is that the robot can memorize joystick movements triggered by a doctor on a certain anatomy to successfully bring a wire or stent to its target. These varying algorithms are stored in a cloud and can then be applied to a comparable anatomy on the other side of the world. 

We are intrigued by the future of innovative medical device technologies regarding these amazing robots, as well as many other innovations presented at MEDICA, as they not only benefit our patients’ future, but also the doctors who use them.

We hope you enjoyed our MEDICA 2021 day two update – we look forward to bringing you more insights as the week progresses!

The MEDICA 2021 Event Hall

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