Anchoring Guidewire

Background

Guidewires are critical components of cardiac, urological and hepatobiliary interventional procedures. As one of the first devices introduced into the body they are guided to the site of interest to provide a track for the intervention delivery system to follow.  Wires can range from floppy, atraumatic devices designed to prevent inadvertent puncture of tissues through to stiff rod-like wires which straighten out tortuous anatomy to allow deployment of bigger and less flexible delivery catheters.

Problem

With more technically demanding and complex interventional procedures, standard guidewires start to show their inadequacies. The clinician has very little control over the free floating distal end of the wire and hence accurate delivery of implants or therapeutics may be compromised. If a stiffer wire is used there is a much higher chance of perforating local tissues. This scenar io is highlighted with Percutaneous Pulmonary Valve Implantation (PPVI). The wire must travel through tortuous anatomy and still be capable of stabilising valve delivery to ensure correct positioning whilst not damaging the pulmonary artery. With current wire technologies this procedure can expose the patient to significant levels of x-ray, contrast perforation and infection risk.

Solution

A reversibly fixable guidewire system has been developed by a leading London Interventionalist to address this problem of control and tissue trauma.

Market Potential

There are 4 million cardiovascular catheterrization procedures in the US alone¹. 77,373 PCI procedures in the UK during 2007². Maintaining guidewire position during procedures is often extremely difficult^3,4.

This product is currently available to license from NHSIL.

References

1. St Jude Press Release May 2008.

2. British Heart Foundation statistics website.

3. Selig and Yazdanfar. (1997) Guide catheter exchange techniques: Bi-coaxial and other methods. Catheterization and Cardiovascular Diagnosis. 41, 4, 442-444.

4. Endovascular skills: Guidewire and Catheter Skills for Endovascular surgery. 3^rd Edition. Informa Healthcare. P. Schneider (2008).