LuxCath eyes the atrial fibrillation market

One problem with using ablation to treat atrial fibrillation is determining when the resulting lesion is sufficient to block the electric signals underlying the arrhythmia. LuxCath thinks its OmniView catheter solves the dilemma by using an optical technology to assess metabolic activity in the ablated tissue, CEO Dr. Omar Amirana told MassDevice.com earlier this month during the annual Heart Rhythm Society meeting in Boston. Amirana, a senior vice president at Allied Minds (LON:ALM), also helms Allied Minds subsidiaries SciFluor and Signature Medical and is a board member at CardioFocus. What drew him to LuxCath, he told us, is its ability to both visualize the ablated tissue and assess its viability. “I’ve been in electrophysiology since 1992 and I have not been able to find a technology that actively can see a lesion, in real time,” Amirana said. “This looks into the tissue, whereas everything else we’re looking at is right on the surface of the tissue, so you don’t have an idea of what’s going inside the wall of the muscle, and that’s really where recurrences occur. “It’s kind of like a stud finder. If you’re looking for where to put the nail, basically, we tell you where the stud is,” he explained. OmniView uses an optic fiber threaded through the catheter to shine light into the myocardium. If there’s poor contact with the catheter, the device doesn’t return a signature, Amirana explain...
Source: Mass Device - Category: Medical Devices Authors: Tags: Cardiovascular Catheters Wall Street Beat Allied Minds LuxCath LLC Source Type: news