• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe

Medical Tubing and Extrusion

Medical tubing and extrusion technologies

  • Technologies
    • Balloons
    • Brain-computer interfaces
    • Cardiac Implants
    • Catheters
    • Endoscopes
    • Heart valves
    • Pulsed Field Ablation
  • Components
    • Connectors
    • Needles and Injections
    • Seals
    • Tubing Components
  • Manufacturing
    • Coatings
    • Extrusions
    • Machining
    • Molding
      • Injection Molding
      • Insert molding
      • Mold Components
    • Tools
  • Materials
    • Advanced Materials
    • Metals
    • Nitinol
    • Plastics
    • Silicone
  • Business
    • Distribution Agreements
    • Legal News
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Partnerships
    • Personnel Moves
  • Regulatory
    • 510(k)
    • CE Mark
    • FDA Breakthrough Designation
    • ISO Certification
    • Pre-Market Approval (PMA)
    • Recalls
  • Suppliers
  • About Us

These tiny ‘mirrors’ could make tracking catheters easier

July 3, 2019 By Nancy Crotti

Researchers Torben Pätz and Jan Strehlow demonstrate the intelligent catheter on a 3D model. (Image from Fraunhofer MEVIS)

Clinicians around the world perform millions of endovascular procedures per year, using catheters and guided by X-rays to place stents or remove blood clots. That’s a lot of radiation for patients and physicians to endure, and the X-rays don’t even provide the most precise images, according to Torben Pätz, a mathematician at the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Medicine (MEVIS) in Bremen, Germany.

Fraunhofer MEVIS is developing a system to remedy these problems.

The “intelligent catheter navigation” or Intellicath method uses a catheter equipped with a special optical fiber containing tiny “mirrors.” When light passes through the fiber, the mirrors reflect a portion of the light. Whenever the fiber bends, the reflected light changes color. Sensors can then measure the change in color.

“The signal from the sensors gives us information about the intensity and direction of the curvature,” Pätz said in a news release. “To some extent, the fiber knows how it is formed.”

An additional element is needed, however, for precise navigation through the vascular system. Before the procedure, physicians obtain CT or MR images of a patient. Based on this image data, IntelliCath software creates a 3D model of the vessel system and displays it on a monitor. During the endovascular procedure, live data from the fiber navigation is fed into the model. The doctor views the monitor to see how the device moves through the vascular labyrinth live and in 3D.

MEVIS experts have already been able to test the method’s feasibility using a prototype, according to Pätz. “We connected several silicone hoses into a curved labyrinth,”  he said. “Then, we inserted our device containing an optical fiber into the labyrinth.” On the monitor, they were able to locate the catheter’s position in real-time with precision approaching five millimeters. The researchers have already applied for two patents.

Although several medical device companies work on similar projects, “they expend a great deal of technical effort into trying to reconstruct the shape of the entire catheter, which can be up to two meters long,” Pätz said. “Our algorithm, however, only needs a fraction of the data to localize the catheter in a known vascular system.”

As a result, the MEVIS approach promises cost-effective technology without special fibers and measurement systems and is less sensitive to measurement errors than previous approaches, according to the institute.

Next, the researchers will test the IntelliCath system on both a full-body phantom of the human vascular system and on a pig lung. Toward the end of the current project phase in 2020, a prototype will be ready to serve as a foundation for a clinical trial.

Pätz and his team are also developing acoustic feedback to relieve doctors of the constant need to look at the monitor. The idea is to employ various indication sounds to signal how far the next vessel junction is and in which direction the catheter should be inserted.

“It is similar to a car’s parking assistance system, where you also receive acoustic indications about the distance to the next obstacle,” Pätz said.

 

Filed Under: Catheters, Research & Development, Tubing Components Tagged With: Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Medicine

Primary Sidebar

“mte
EXPAND YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND STAY CONNECTED
Get the latest trends and developments in medical tubing and extrusion.
MDO ad

Sponsored Content

A new way to access scientific papers?

Mass Device

The Medical Device Business Journal. MassDevice is the leading medical device news business journal telling the stories of the devices that save lives.

Visit Website

MEDTECH 100 INDEX

Medtech 100 logo
Market Summary > Current Price
The MedTech 100 is a financial index calculated using the BIG100 companies covered in Medical Design and Outsourcing.

Footer

Inv Logo

MASSDEVICE MEDICAL NETWORK

MassDevice
DeviceTalks
Medical Design & Outsourcing
MedTech 100 Index
Drug Discovery & Development
Pharmaceutical Processing World
Medical Design Sourcing
R&D World
Drug Delivery Business News

Medical Tubing + Extrusion

Subscribe to our E-Newsletter
Advertise with us
About
Attend our Monthly Webinars
Listen to our Weekly Podcasts
Join our DeviceTalks Tuesdays Discussion

Copyright © 2025 · WTWH Media LLC and its licensors. All rights reserved.
The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media.

Privacy Policy | RSS