Digital Lightbox replaces the conventional light box used to observe analog x-ray images. Connected to the hospital PACS, the new digital platform can be installed both in meeting rooms and in operating rooms, where clinicians can then access, manipulate, and utilize data for surgery planning. By displaying the human body in 3D, Digital Lightbox helps clinicians to more clearly demonstrate to patients what effects a disease can have and which procedures may be necessary.

Digital Lightbox enables clinicians to select the most valuable images from large amounts of existing medical data. Ergonomic touchscreen technology with zoom functionality makes working with data easy and effective.

Clinicians can intuitively navigate within pictures and between settings. Image scrolling can be performed with one finger; zooming in and out of images with two. Images from different sources can also be fused easily. A measure functionality enables clinicians to set size and other dimensions.

By integrating the communication platform iPlan® Net from BrainLAB, clinicians can perform treatment planning with Digital Lightbox or any PC connected to the hospital network. This eliminates bottlenecks, as busy planning stations are rendered obsolete. iPlan Net helps to simplify the clinical workflow and save costs, as well as strengthen and simplify interdisciplinary collaboration between neurosurgery, nuclear medicine and radiology departments.

Digital Lightbox can be installed in any hospital environment and is compatible with all established image formats, such as DICOM, jpg, bmp, tif, png, avi, wmv. Planning data can be transferred directly from Digital Lightbox to surgical navigation systems designed for precise and minimally invasive procedures.

Video demonstrating the Digital Lightbox:

Press release: World Premiere at University Hospital in Munich: Digital Lightbox...

Product page: Digital Lightbox

From the CX50 product page:

Previously available only on our premium iE33 system, PureWave on the CX50 system allows you to get the clear images you need for confident diagnoses on a wide variety of patients, including the difficult-to-image.

The CX50 system was designed for your critical study requirements. In addition to PureWave, its premium imaging and Doppler performance are possible because of its digital broadband beamformer and XRES technology. Easily perform advanced echo analysis with integrated QLAB and stress echo capability.

The CX50 is designed to make portable exams easy and efficient. One-button iSCAN automatically optimizes 2D and Doppler data for new levels of clarity for your portable studies. On-board QLAB provides advanced analysis capabilities during and after exams.

Portable exams are a challenge, and getting clear diagnostic data is complicated by many factors. Now you can have the image quality you need for the diagnostic confidence wherever you need it – take the CX50 to your patients.

The CX50 system can be used on a specially designed cart, hand carried to your patients, or packed in its special travel case for easy transport to remote destinations.

Press release: Philips new handheld ultrasound system offers premium image quality in a portable system

Product page: CX50 CompactXtreme Ultrasound System

We have contacted a rep for Cook Medical, the maker of Zenith® Fenestrated AAA Endovascular Graft, for an explanation about this custom made device, and here's what we got in response:

Cook's fenestrated endograft is the first in the world to incorporate tailored openings - either as semi-circular scallops or full-circular openings called fenestrations - in the top section of the endograft. This allows the self-expanding fabric-covered stent-graft to treat aortic and aortoiliac aneurysms extending close to the renal and superior mesenteric arteries, which are then stented to reduce the risk of restricting or blocking critical blood flow to the kidneys and bowel. Each fenestrated device is custom-made to suit individual patients' anatomy by Cook's endograft manufacturing division in Australia.

Cook's Zenith Fenestrated AAA Endovascular Graft is an investigational device not available for sale in the U.S. It has regulatory approval for sale in Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and other major markets.

Product page: Zenith® Fenestrated...

The distal end of the latest Retriever is tightly coiled, which resists stretching and assists in dislodging clots. The proximal end of the V series Retrievers is more loosely coiled, which facilitates wrapping and holding a dislodged clot. Similar to Concentric Medical's L family of Retrievers, the V series of Merci Retrievers incorporate filaments that provide an additional mechanism for securing blood clots during retrieval from the brain. The V series of Merci Retrievers will be available in diameters of 2.0, 2.5 and 3.0 millimeters.

The Merci Retriever® is made with a flexible, shaped Nitinol wire that allows delivery of the Retriever in linear form using standard catheterization techniques. A neurointerventionalist makes a small puncture in the groin to introduce the Merci Retriever into an artery leading to the brain. The Merci Retriever returns to its original shape when deployed in and around the blood clot in the brain.

Press release: CONCENTRIC MEDICAL LAUNCHES NEXT GENERATION FAMILY OF NEUROVASCULAR RETRIEVERS

Product page: V Series

The video below shows off the technology and demonstrates various cuts using the PlasmaBlade compared to scalpels and bovies.

Peak Surgical homepage...

Press release: PEAK Surgical Receives 510(k) Clearance to Market PEAK® Surgery System for Use in General Surgery...

Flashback: Peak PlasmaBlade Wants to Be The New Bovie

Xconomy Seattle is reporting:

Pathway's FDA application was based on a study of 172 patients in Europe, which found that its device sliced through rock-hard calcium and squishier blockages without tearing or poking any holes in vessel walls. Three patients developed clots or debris that required treatment, which contributed to a serious adverse event rate of 2.9 percent. The effectiveness was eye-opening. Arteries of patients went from 89 percent blocked on average at the beginning of the study to 39 percent clogged after the Pathway device was used, according to data presented in October at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics conference in Washington D.C.

The arteries apparently stay open, too. After six months of follow-up, only about 14 percent of patients required a second procedure, Clement says, compared with about half of patients after traditional balloon angioplasty.

More from Xconomy Seattle...

Video animation of the device in action...

Product page: Pathway PV™ Atherectomy System...

The Zenith TX2 TAA Endovascular Graft with the H&L-B One-Shot Introduction System is indicated for the endovascular treatment of patients with aneurysms or ulcers of the descending thoracic aorta having vascular morphology suitable for endovascular repair including:

Adequate iliac/femoral access compatible with the required introduction systems,

Non-aneurysmal aortic segments (fixation sites) proximal and distal to the aneurysm or ulcer:

with a length of at least 25 mm, and

with a diameter measured outer wall to outer wall of no more than 38 mm and no less than 24 mm

Product page: Zenith TX2® TAA...

Press release: Cook Medical Announces the First Commercial Placement of the Zenith TX2® TAA Endovascular Graft in the United States...

Flashback: Zenith TX2 Thoracic TAA Endovascular Graft

Some of the features from the product page:

Adult and pediatric dosing for FDA-approved and off-label indications

Black box warnings, contraindications, and cautions

Serious and common adverse reactions, and drug interactions organized by clinical category

Pill pictures within the drug monograph showing you and your patients exactly what each drug looks like

Safety and monitoring information, such as pregnancy risk categories, lactation safety ratings, monitoring parameters and therapeutic drug levels

Manufacturer information, approximate retail pricing, and FDA/DEA status

Pharmacology information, including metabolism, excretion (i.e., half-life), drug class, and mechanism of action

Notes section for your personal notes

Press release: Epocrates Drug and Formulary Application on Apple App Store

Product page: Epocrates Rx for iPhone

The Endurant Stent Graft was CE (Conformité Européene) marked last week, and Medtronic will begin commercialization in mid-July. (CE mark is the European regulatory approval.) Outside the United States, the Endurant System expands the applicability of endovascular aortic repair (EVAR) to more patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs), which are present in an estimated 1.2 million people and responsible for 15,000 deaths annually in the United States.

Building on more than a decade of industry-leading experience, the new device seeks to address those AAA patients whose aortas are highly angulated or whose aneurysms have short necks. Patients with these complex anatomies would previously have had no choice but watchful waiting or open surgical repair, in which the abdomen is opened and major organs temporarily moved in order to access the aorta. The Endurant Stent Graft System is an investigational device in the United States, where it is limited to investigational use only.

Prof. Hence Verhagen, chief of vascular surgery at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, led the European clinical trial of the Endurant Stent Graft System which supported the CE mark: “This next-generation device has performed exceptionally well in the treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysms. The Endurant System has the potential to expand the applicability of EVAR to more AAA patients who have been considered especially difficult to treat. I speak for my colleagues, too, by saying that physicians worldwide are eagerly awaiting the commercial release of this innovative new stent graft.”

The first implants of the Endurant Stent Graft System in the U.S. clinical trial took place during the last two weeks, with excellent periprocedural results. The initial implants at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio were performed by Drs. Matthew Eagleton, Timur Sarac and Vikram Kashyap; those at Scott & White Memorial Hospital in Temple, Texas, were completed by a team led by Dr. C. J. Buckley.

Approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in June under an investigational device exemption (IDE), the U.S. clinical trial of the Endurant Stent Graft System is designed to evaluate the device’s safety and effectiveness in the endovascular treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysms. As the pivotal trial for the Endurant Stent Graft, it will be used to seek FDA approval of the device. The study will enroll 150 patients at up to 30 U.S. sites in the next 12–18 months. All patients who meet the single-arm study’s inclusion criteria will receive an Endurant Stent Graft; their outcomes will be compared to those who received the Talent™ Abdominal Stent Graft as part of the pivotal study that led to that device’s FDA approval.

Press release: Medtronic Starts International Market Launch and U.S. Clinical Trial of Endurant Stent Graft...

From the announcement press release:

This innovative G-Wire™ will enable physicians to visually track the actual orientation as well as the 3D spatial tip position of the wire while manipulating it in real time. In addition, it will enable marking and 3D visualization capabilities also offered by the MediGuide technology. These capabilities are achieved using MediGuide's Medical Positioning System (gMPS™) technology, incorporated within various Cath Labs which has been recently approved for use in Europe. This new functionality is expected to be extremely useful during procedures such as chronic total occlusion (CTO) as well as other complex operations which require accurate wire manipulation in the field of interventional cardiology.

Martin B. Leon, M.D., Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center and Founder of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation in New York City, said: “This collaboration brings together the most advanced guidewires and sophisticated imaging and guidance technology, providing an exciting opportunity to improve CTO therapy in the future.”

Dr. Osamu Katoh, Director of Research Center at the Toyohashi Heart Center, said
"No matter how you look at it, Asahi's guide wire technology produces one to one torque performance. The integration of Asahi's one to one torque performance technology and MediGuide's gMPS navigation technology, will create a tremendous synergy effect that could dramatically improve the treatment options for complex lesions, including CTO's"

Press release: Asahi Intecc and MediGuide announced collaboration in development and sales of innovative gMPS™ Enabled Guide Wire (G-Wire™) ...

More from Globes...

ASAHI INTECC torque technology page...

Flashbacks: Medical Position System (MPS) from MediGuide: GPS for Cath