ABOVE: The robotic cardiac catheter used in the study.
FAGOGENIS ET AL., SCI. ROBOT. 4 EAAW1977 9 (2019)
By gently feeling its way around the walls of a beating pig heart, a self-guiding catheter can find a leaky valve and position itself for a human operator to plug the hole, according to a report in Science Robotics today (April 24). The system’s developers suggest that automating catheter navigation could free surgeons from having to perform this challenging yet routine process, allowing them to focus on the most critical aspects of the surgery.
“Building consistency and reproducibility into [surgical] procedures generally improves [patient] outcomes,” heart surgeon and researcher Michael Reardon of Houston Methodist Hospital who was not involved with the research writes in an email to The Scientist. “Robotic control of the catheter delivery systems that we use for endovascular procedures can help us obtain this goal . . . [and] the ...
