Lumivascular technology now in use for artery disease treatment at Memorial Hospital
From Illinois Business Journal news services
BELLEVILLE — Memorial Hospital’s Heart and Vascular Center of Excellence is now using the Ocelot catheter system to help patients facing Peripheral Artery Disease, a condition that affects between 8 and 12 million adults in the U.S.
PAD is caused by a build-up of plaque in the arteries that blocks blood flow to the legs and feet. Often dismissed as normal signs of aging, symptoms of PAD include painful cramping, numbness, or discoloration in the legs or feet. PAD can become so severe and difficult to penetrate with traditional catheters that patients and physicians often resort to undergoing extremely invasive bypass surgeries that result in even higher health risks and lengthy, painful recoveries.
Treating PAD costs hospitals $102 billion to $253 billion each year, largely due to late detection, which increases the need for invasive treatment options, such as bypass surgery.
In severe cases, patients often face amputation, the worst-case scenario associated with PAD. The Ocelot catheter is said to help prevent leg amputations and bypass surgeries through a minimally invasive procedure that sends most patients home within a few days.
The Ocelot catheter, supported by a Lightbox console, uses a lumivascular procedure that allows physicians to see from inside the artery during a procedure, using optical coherence tomography, or OCT to navigate through the vessel. In the past, physicians have had to rely solely on X-ray as well as touch and/or feel to guide catheters through complicated blockages. Physicians say they can more accurately navigate through CTOs thanks to the OCT images.
Ocelot is the first CTO crossing catheter that uses OCT technology to access exact regions of the peripheral vasculature where the blockages occur, while simultaneously providing physicians in the Heart and Vascular Center of Excellence at Memorial with visualization for real-time navigation during an intervention.
Dr. Hans Moosa, Dr. Richard Coats and Dr. Patrick Neville, all vascular surgeons and members of Memorial Medical Group, are using Ocelot. It is a minimally invasive treatment designed to allow patients to return to normal activities within just a few days.
For more information visit www.memorialheartvascular.com.
