Alan Lumsden, vascular surgeon and director of the Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center, performed the procedure at Houston Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas using the Magellan robotic system (Hansen Medical) to remove a filter manufactured by Cook Medical.
Lumsden said: “This is another great example of how the precision, stability and control of the Magellan robotic catheters are being applied to help improve the predictability of many of the complex endovascular procedures that we perform on a daily basis.”
Retrievable inferior vena cava filters can be removed from the body when the risk of pulmonary embolism has subsided or when the patient is able to tolerate blood thinning medications. The filter is retrieved via an endovascular procedure in which a hook on the filter is “snared” by a specially designed wire and pulled back into a catheter, and then removed from the body. Retrieval may be technically challenging or fail when a filter has tilted inside the body. By enabling a physician to change the angle and direction of the robotic catheter inside the blood vessel, Magellan may help a physician to more precisely target the hook of a tilted filter.
Magellan’s remote workstation allows physicians to navigate through the vasculature while seated away from the radiation field, potentially reducing physicians’ radiation exposure and procedural fatigue.
