Cooper team earns $100K grant to develop catheterization device

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Heart catheterizations are challenging procedures, to say the least. Now, thanks to a $100,000 grant, a team from Cooper University Health Care will be able to enhance an invention designed to improve the process. 

Cooper’s Center for Innovation received the grant from the Foundation for Health Advancement to develop the Antegrade Femoral Artery Entry Device and Sheath invented by vascular and endovascular surgeons Dr. Jeffrey Carpenter, chairman and chief of the Department of Surgery, and Dr. Katherine McMackin, director of vascular surgical research. 

More than 1 million cardiac catheterization procedures are performed annually in the U.S., according to the National Institutes of Health. And while the risk of major complications during this type of procedure is usually less than 1%, they are to be expected because of the invasive nature of the process, the NIH added. 

The Cooper team elaborated on this, explaining that the difficulty with catheterizations – which involves a medical team guiding wires, catheters, balloons and stents to the heart through the femoral artery beginning in the upper thigh and moving up into the patient’s heart – is that patients’ body structures, especially the abdomen, vary greatly. 

Carpenter said these variations in structure can sometimes lead to bleeding or even the inability to complete the procedure. 

Carpenter and McMackin’s design is a sheath-and-delivery system that allows the wires and instruments to be inserted in opposing directions through a single port of entry, which bypasses the challenges associated with the patient’s abdominal structure. The benefits of this devices include more options and greater flexibility for the medical team and a reduced risk of infection for the patient. 

“Physicians have long expressed the need for improved devices and methods to aid in these types of procedures,” Carpenter said in a statement. “We are hopeful that this device will provide those new options.” 

McMackin added, “We anticipate that this new device will potentially have widespread use and positively impact patient outcomes.” 

Dr. George Heinrich, vice chair and CEO of New Jersey Health Foundation, an affiliate of Princeton-based FHA, said his organization was excited to support the development of Carpenter and McMackin’s invention. He added that the physicians “have shown relentless commitment and passion toward creating a device to improve patient outcomes during endovascular interventions.” 

NJBIZ has highlighted several recent innovations in cardiac care around the state, including Hudson Regional Hospital’s new cardiac catheterization lab, as well as five Hackensack Meridian Health facilities receiving the elite HeartCARE Center National Distinction of Excellence from the American College of Cardiology. Additionally, in the Aug. 28 issue, NJBIZ Lists ranked New Jersey’s top cardiac care centers, with an Atlantic Health System facility coming out on top.