Cleveland, Ohio and Lod, Israel: Simbionix unveiled its revolutionary PreOp Mentor Simulator (WIP) for a sneak preview during a "Live Broadcast" at Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapetuics (TCT) in Washington, DC where Dr.
Bill Gray successfully performed a carotid intervention at Columbia University, NY on a patient after simulating the procedure on the PreOp Mentor a day earlier based on the actual anatomy of that patient.
The PreOp case was performed in collaboration with PolyDimensions, Germany, a company specializing in high quality anatomical 3D-reconstruction from CT-Data.Dr.
Giora Weisz, an Interventional Cardiologist from Cardiovascular Research Foundation and Columbia University Medical Center stated, "I believe patient-based simulation can significantly improve patient safety by training physicians on the patient's own anatomy and by practicing with the appropriate devices before the actual procedure, resulting in shorter procedure time, less unnecessary equipment, and ultimately, higher success rates and less complications." During the live broadcast, the Cath Lab team said they believe that as a result of the patient-based training, they used less contorts, less x-ray time and most importantly, were able to improve patient safety.
Ran Bronstein, Simbionix President stated, "until now, simulation was limited to generalized models of patients, however, with the PreOp Mentor, planning and simulation are done beforehand based on the patient's individual anatomy, allowing for better preparation and leading to better results."
In addition to the PreOp Mentor Simulator, scheduled for Commercial Release in 2007, Simbionix showcased their new advanced Coronary Module at TCT.
The Coronary Module simulates coronary interventions such as, PTCA, stenting and left ventricular angiography.
The new module uniquely features the simulation of a patient's vital signs in response to actual simulated coronary complications while the ANGIO Mentor Mini is a portable simulator to be used as a "Personal Trainer" for smaller courses or for on-site training.