3 minute read
Partnerships
STROKE CARE HAS SEEN
considerable advances in recent years, and Stryker Neurovascular has played a role in these developments. In addition to expanding its portfolio to include cutting-edge products designed to remove blood clots in the brain quickly and efficiently, the company has one of the longest-running fellows programmes in the industry, and its investments in clinical trials have led to meaningful changes in stroke treatment guidelines.
But, Stryker is not standing still, and the company is keen to build on its foundations at the vanguard of stroke care, to build commercial partnerships that go beyond its traditional portfolio, and drive efficiencies in each step of the stroke care pathway.
Already Stryker has forged a series of partnerships in its mission to offer an end-toend solution for stroke care. Among these are link-ups with stroke software providers Allm and Brainomix to close the loop on efficient stroke care in Europe. These partnerships help with the speedy diagnosis of stroke, as getting eligible patients to the right hospital for treatment remains one of the biggest challenges. Timely treatment in stroke is critical as the brain ages approximately three weeks per minute during the course of a stroke, and endovascular therapy increases the chances of a good outcome.
Allm’s Join software helps to meet this need by enabling streamlined access to patient information and imaging, allowing hospitals to request and track patient transfers, consult on treatment decisions, and ensure the stroke team’s readiness upon a patient’s arrival. Teams can discuss patients via video and text, securely, in real time.
Features include time stamps to document and optimise each step of the patient care workflow, tracking to monitor the patient’s route and know when they will arrive on site, a DICOM viewer, streaming images from a hosptial’s picture archiving and communication system (PACS) to a handheld device, and video calling.
Stryker’s partnership with Brainomix provides an option for European centres to access e-Stroke software. e-Stroke is an AIpowered software platform providing realtime interpretation of brain scans, enabling physicians to quickly diagnose stroke and make treatment and transfer decisions. The software employs a combination of advanced image processing and machine learning to assist with stroke-imaging interpretation, and results are presented alongside the original images, allowing the physician to confirm the software’s assessment and understand its working.
“We are now able to offer customers software that can more quickly diagnose patients,” says Mark Paul, president of Stryker’s Neurovascular division. “Helping our customers deliver the best possible outcomes for their patients is at the core of everything we do. With these partnerships, we are able to facilitate the patient’s path to timely treatment, increasing the chance for a good outcome.”
Setting the right strategy
HAVING THE CHOICE OF LENGTH,
diameter, and location of the stent are critical to success when performing flow diversion for the treatment of intracranial aneurysm. With that in mind, having a tool to improve the therapeutic planning of the procedure is a potential game-changer.
By simulating the endovascular deployment and apposition of devices it is possible to transform the delivery of the procedure and potentially contribute to a reduced need for corrective intervention, as well as shorter procedural times. These are some of the features of the proprietary software suite Sim&Size, a next-generation tool that sits at the heart of the Sim&Cure portfolio.
Sim&Cure is a digital startup, founded in 2014, focused on improving endovascular surgery. Sim&Size has become an important
Sim&Size simulates endovascular deployment and apposition of devices
part of the Stryker armoury for stroke care, thanks to a partnership between the two companies that has been running for several years. Through this link-up, Stryker offers interventional neuroradiologists a customised version of Sim&Size for use with the Surpass Evolve Flow Diverter. This collaboration is intended to help define the best therapeutic strategy, whether it be coiling with a supporting stent, or flow diversion.
So, how does it work? Sim&Size is comprised of three applications sizing all types of device that are widely used to treat patients with neurovascular disorders. The software is based upon three-dimensional rotational angiography (3D-RA) acquisition, which simulates the release of the stent, suggesting optimal sizing, and displaying the degree of wall apposition. According to the patient’s unique anatomy, Sim&Size computationally models neurointerventional devices to provide essential information for preoperative planning.
The software has already been used to treat more than 5,000 patients in over 400 hospitals worldwide and has CE mark and US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 510(k) approvals.
