Corindus Vascular Robotics Launches CorPath One Stent Program

October 30, 2013—Corindus Vascular Robotics (Waltham, MA) announced the launch of its CorPath One Stent program, which seeks to raise awareness of the potential to decrease longitudinal geographic miss (LGM) caused by suboptimal stent placement.

The program also seeks to promote the patient safety and financial benefits that can result from using the CorPath vascular robotic system to place one stent per lesion in coronary angioplasty procedures. As a demonstration of the company's confidence in the system to decrease the need for the use of more than one stent, Corindus is offering a $1,000 credit to hospitals that must use two or more stents per lesion in qualifying coronary angioplasties performed with the CorPath system.

According to Corindus, interventionists conducting PCI procedures in the United States use more than 1.2 stents per lesion to avoid inferior clinical outcomes because of LGM.

The need for additional stenting can be caused by challenges in visualizing the lesion, improper stent selection because of inaccurate lesion length assessment, and misplacement of the stent during device delivery. In cases in which more than one stent is used, the hospital's procedure profitability is reduced substantially, noted Corindus.

“The CorPath One Stent program is evidence that Corindus stands behind their product and its potential to avoid excess stenting and provide significant financial and safety benefits to the hospital and the patient,” commented John Cannizzaro, who is Cardiovascular Service Line Administrator at St. Joseph's Hospital Health Center in Syracuse, New York.

“No matter how good we are as physicians, we are still human and imprecision in stent placement or stent size selection can occur,” commented Ronald Caputo, MD, in the company's press release. Dr. Caputo is Director of Cardiac Services and Cardiology Research at St. Joseph's Hospital in Syracuse, New York and was a participant in the CorPath PRECISE trial conducted in 2011.

“Introducing CorPath into our cath lab has provided substantial benefits to both physicians and patients in terms of our ability to more accurately select the stent size and enhance dexterity in delivering it to a precise location,” Dr. Caputo added. “Ultimately, these capabilities may result in improved outcomes for the patient and an enhanced PCI procedure for the physician.”

The company stated that the CorPath system, which is cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration, was designed to bring robotic precision to coronary angioplasty procedures and stent positioning. During a CorPath angioplasty procedure, the interventional cardiologist sits in the interventional cockpit, which provides a shield from radiation, and advances stents and guidewires via a joystick with millimeter-by-millimeter precision.