Stabilizing interventional instruments in the cardiovascular system: A classification of mechanisms

Positioning and stabilizing a catheter at the required location inside a vessel or the heart is a complicated task in interventional cardiology. In this review we provide a structured classification of catheter stabilization mechanisms to systematically assess their challenges during cardiac interventions. Commercially available, patented,...

First Expert Evaluation of a New Steerable Catheter in an Isolated Beating Heart

Purpose: In previous studies we developed two mechanical prototypes of steerable catheters: the Sigma, which uses joysticks to actuate two steerable tip segments, and the Epsilon, which has a handle that is an enlarged version of the tip. In this study, we present a first performance evaluation of the prototypes in the cardiac environment....

Catheter steering in interventional cardiology: Mechanical analysis and novel solution

In recent years, steerable catheters have been developed to combat the effects of the dynamic cardiac environment. Mechanically actuated steerable catheters appear the most in the clinical setting; however, they are bound to a number of mechanical limitations. The aim of this research is to gain insight in these limitations and use this...

ChoRe: A device for trans-catheter chordae tendineae repair

This work focuses on the design of a new device (called ChoRe) to place artificial chords in the mitral valve structure during a trans-catheter procedure. The aim of the device is to restore the correct functionality of the valve and solve mitral valve regurgitation, that is, a common consequence of chordae tendineae rupture. An analysis of...

Flood inundation modeling and hazard mapping under uncertainty in the Sungai Johor basin, Malaysia

Flooding can have devastating impacts on people’s livelihood, economy and the environment. An important instrument in flood management is floodplain maps, which assist land planners and local authorities in identifying flood-prone areas, and provide useful information for rescue and relief agencies for their operations. Developing floodplain...

Evaluation of a multi-steerable catheter for cardiac interventions in a 3D-printed heart model

To overcome the challenges presented by complex 3-dimensional shapes and tortuous vasculature in the cardiovascular environment, we previously developed a prototype of a multi-steerable catheter having 4 DOFs controlled by two joysticks [1]. However, it remains unknown whether the added steering possibilities are beneficial in the cardiovascular...

Bending dynamics of semi-flexible particles in turbulent flows

We study the Lagrangian dynamics of semi-flexible particles in laminar as well as in homogeneous and isotropic turbulent flows by means of analytically solvable stochastic models and direct numerical simulations. The statistics of the bending angle is qualitatively different in laminar and turbulent flows and exhibits a strong dependence on the...