Innovations 2005 (page 5 of 5)
TOTAL ARTFICIAL HEART
Cleveland Clinic implanted its first total artificial heart in 2005. CardioWest (TM) is a temporary total artificial heart developed by SynCardia Systems, Inc., and is used as a bridge to transplantation. CardioWest is a pneumatic, biventricular, implantable system that completely replaces a patient’s failing heart.
It eliminates some of the problems commonly seen with left ventricular and biventricular assist devices used as a bridge to transplant, such as right heart failure, valvular regurgitation, cardiac arrhythmias, ventricular clots, intraventricular communications, and low blood flows.
INNOVATIVE ARCH ANEURSYM REPAIR
The image at right, provided by Cleveland Clinic vascular surgeon Roy Greenberg, M.D., demonstrates an arch aneurysm repair with an aortic stent graft branching into the left common carotid artery and a carotid-subclavian artery bypass.
Our cardiac surgeons frequently work in tandem with vascular surgeons, offering a team-based approach to treating complex aortic disease.
MINIMALLY INVASIVE APPROACH FOR BIVENTRICULAR LEAD PLACEMENT
Cardiac surgeons are now able to insert biventricular leads using robotics and a thorascopic approach to treat patients with heart failure. The first illustration shows robotic technology for placing pacing leads on the ventricle. The second shows thorascopic lead placement.
MAGNETIC NAVIGATION SYSTEM
In July, 2005, Cleveland Clinic electrophysiologists began utilizing the Stereotaxis Niobe® Magnetic Navigation System (MNS) in the Electrophysiology Lab to digitally navigate catheter ablations and biventricular ICD and pacemaker implant procedures. Cleveland Clinic was the first facility in the U.S. to use this system along with bi- plane fluoroscopic imaging technology to perform catheter-based procedures.
The Stereotaxis Niobe® MNS is an interventional workstation that allows electrophysiologists to direct and digitally control catheter-based therapeutic and diagnostic devices along complex trajectories within the heart and coronary vasculature. The system combines a magnetic actuator (external to the body) that controls percutaneous devices, as well as realtime imaging and computer control of disposable devices. The company’s catheters and guidewires have small magnets embedded in the tips. The magnetic actuator orients the magnet (and therefore the catheter or wire tip) in a precisely defined field, thus “pointing” the tip in the desired direction.
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