Team Member(s): Rosalee Celis, Emily Churchwell, Alan Komisarcik, Roshni Malik, Megha Mathur
Project Mentor(s): Gautam Kumar, M.D.
Class Year: 2016
It is estimated that 30 percent of patients undergoing an angiogram are diagnosed with chronic total occlusion (CTO) which is defined as a near-100% blocking of the coronary arteries. The current gold standard to treat CTO is through a coronary artery bypass graft which is a very invasive and costly surgery. Alternatively, patients may elect to treat CTO through a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) since this procedure is minimally invasive, cheaper, and requires less recovery time. However, the current PCI success rate to treat CTO is at 60 percent. Procedures typically fail because the physician can’t penetrate the proximal lesion cap to clear the blockage. The team proposed a technology to treat CTO via PCI known as Spyra. Their Spyra technology utilizes an electromagnetic probe inserted through the antegrade pathway. A guidewire inserted through the retrograde pathway is utilized to penetrate the distal lesion cap. Once the retrograde guidewire is at close proximity to the proximal cap, the electromagnetic probe which is part of the Spyra system is switched on to attract the guidewire with an additional magnetic “pull” force and helps to bring the guidewire successfully through the proximal cap. Afterwards, a stent can be deployed via balloon angioplasty.
