Medical Simulation Corporation out of Denver, Colorado has released a set of precise cardiac models developed by John Carroll, MD, Medical Director for MCS and Director of Interventional Cardiology and Director, Cardiac and Vascular Center at University of Colorado Denver. The Hearts in Hand Collection is comprised of three hearts with defects modeled on actual patient organs: Aortic Stenosis, Foramen Ovale, and Atrial Septal Defect.
The Hearts in Hand Collection, a library of physical heart models in a variety of structural disease states, will allow physicians to gain a quick and thorough understanding of spatial relationships and practice catheter pathways and device sizing prior to conducting minimally invasive interventions.
“Cardiologists use a variety of medical images today to plan procedures. Physical models translate these images into a format more inherently useful to the procedure planning process, and are also highly valuable to physicians training to perform new procedures,” says Dr. Carroll. “Medical images are no longer constrained to being ‘virtual’.”
New advances in technology are allowing physicians to increasingly use interventional rather than surgical means to treat structural heart disease (SHD). Minimally-invasive interventions, such as percutaneous closure of intracardiac defects, valve repair and replacement and myocardial disease treatments, translate to faster patient recovery and less pain for the patient.
The collection of physical heart models will be an invaluable resource for educational and research institutions, the medical device industry and regulatory agencies.
The Hearts in Hand Collection and the accompanying 3-D interactive graphics provide physicians and their teams with hands-on training tools to help them plan for safer and more efficient SHD interventions. These tools can aid in patient selection, delivery system device and anatomy matching, and catheter pathway practice.
Link: Hearts in Hand Collection…
Press release: Introducing the Hearts in Hand™ Collection at TCT (.pdf)…
