IVUS or OCT are typically used by interventional cardiologists to image coronary anatomy during minimally invasive procedures, such as angiograms, angioplasty and stenting procedures.
Drs. Tej Sheth and Natalia Pinilla Echeverri are co-investigators at Hamilton General Hospital where the procedures were performed under a Health Canada Investigational Testing Authorization.
The technology originated from Dr. Courtney’s laboratory at Sunnybrook Research Institute in Toronto and is being commercialized by Conavi Medical.
Conavi president and CEO Dr Brian Courtney said: “The purported advantages of the synergistic information that IVUS and OCT can provide have been highly anticipated in the interventional cardiology community.
“These cases performed in Hamilton represent the first worldwide clinical use of any system that combines IVUS with OCT on a single catheter.
“ In an era of personalized and precision medicine, we believe that the ability to collect comprehensive imaging data in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) provides an important opportunity to generate improved clinical decision-making capabilities for these patients in the future.”
Dr. Sheth said: “The Novasight Hybrid imaging catheter is a deliverable imaging system that is able to rapidly and simultaneously acquire co-registered IVUS and OCT images.
“In this study, we are collecting the first human images with this novel imaging system to confirm the functionality of the technology in the clinical environment and to help inform future studies. We have been able to identify some early examples of the synergies between these two modalities in our clinical experience so far.
“Ultimately, hybrid IVUS/OCT imaging has the potential to overcome the limitations of IVUS or OCT alone in accurately characterizing atherosclerotic tissue and in guiding coronary interventions.”
Conavi Medical is a privately-held Canadian company focused on designing, manufacturing, and selling imaging technologies to guide minimally invasive cardiovascular procedures.
Source: Company Press Release
