Cambridge Consultants provides new surgical experience
Cambridge Consultants has developed a new surgical tool with which small implants can be deployed in the nervous system, while avoiding nerves and blood vessels. The Chimaera combines preoperative and intraoperative data to identify a safe operative path, and with its sensors and real-time data provides the surgeon assistance to stay on this path while avoiding critical structures. With the new innovation, surgeons can work more precisely, boosting the safety of patients.
Neurostimulation is a therapy that delivers electrical impulses directly into the nervous system to control biological response through the use of an implant in the brain. Currently the systems that deliver neurostimulation are very large that have a whole range of complications that limit the applications. To encounter this, a much smaller device has been developed; a single chip small implant that can also be used for a whole range of new indications. With smaller implants, new devices need to be developed to deliver these devices.
Global product development engineering and technology consulting firm Cambridge Consultants has designed a surgical tool that will allow for the delivery of next-generation miniaturised neurostimulators: the Chimaera. The Chimaera is a hybrid surgical and implant delivery system that enables surgeons to deploy implants safely as it identifies and highlights critical structures to be avoided, such as nerves and blood vessels, through its sensors.
How does it work?
Chimaera combines novel sensing with the latest user-interface, control and guidance technologies. It uses preoperative CT scan data to create a 3D image of the area to be operated on, and with the preoperative and intraoperative data it will define a safe implantation route. During the operation, the Chimaera will assist the surgeon to stay on this predetermined pathway as it provides the surgeon with an actual view of the operated area that will be superimposed on the operative plan on a screen. Through the visualisation of anatomical information, the surgeon will ‘see’ at any time where he/she exactly is in the body and where critical structures are. The device also lets the surgeon know when the target nerve has been reached and the implant can be deployed.
“This novel surgical device has the potential to fundamentally change the surgical experience by giving the surgeon a new dimension of information in an easy-to-use way,” comments Simon Karger, head of surgical and interventional products at Cambridge Consultants. “Specifically, it opens the door to a new generation of neurostimulation implant procedures. And, more generally, it will enable more surgeons to carry out complex operations at lower risk and with better results for patients.
