Provided herein are methods for decreasing the toxicity of advanced ablative cancer therapies on neighboring organs. The methods herein provide spacing between single or multiple tumor cites and immediate healthy organs while maintaining or increasing patient quality of life. Such toxicity isolation can be performed by inserting a spacer around the one or more tumor cites, which can be performed concurrently with fiducial marker placement.

A radiopaque anchor and delivery device system may comprise a pigtail catheter and a radiopaque anchor. The pigtail catheter may be a dual lumen catheter configured to deploy the radiopaque anchor and delivery a radiopaque fluid or contrast agent. The implantable radiopaque anchor may be slidably disposed within and deployable from a lumen of the elongate shaft.

Medical devices useful in interventional procedures performed under magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are described herein. A medical device comprises a body member and a marker formed of work-hardened stainless steel attached to the body member. The stainless steel of the marker has an ultimate tensile strength of between about 100 KSI and about 225 KSI. The marker can be attached to the body member in a manner that contributes work to the stainless steel or in a manner that does not contribute work to the stainless steel. Methods of making medical devices, medical imaging methods, and methods of performing interventional medical treatment are also described herein.

An endoluminal punch system including a sheath and dilator. The endoluminal punch may include energy delivery system capable of being transmitted from the proximal end to the distal end of the endoluminal punch to assist with tissue crossing and incisions. The dilator may include selectively deployable cutting mechanism to create incisions in tissue that are larger than their basic external diameter. The system may also be configured to reduce the risk of generating plastic emboli during insertion of the endoluminal punch.

The present invention relates to an apparatus for puncturing a maxillary sinus, the apparatus including: a main body gripped by an operator; a probing unit detachable from the main body and configured to detect a posterior fontanelle; a surgical procedure tube which is provided in the main body and formed of an endoscope unit configured to monitor the posterior fontanelle, a puncturing unit configured to puncture the posterior fontanelle, and an irrigation tube configured to irrigate the maxillary sinus through a punctured portion of the posterior fontanelle; and an operation unit provided in the main body and configured to operate the surgical procedure tube.

A breast biopsy marker includes a catheter shaft and a bioabsorbable balloon. The catheter shaft has a lumen, a proximal tube portion, and a distal tube portion. The proximal tube portion is joined to the distal tube portion by a frangible link. The distal tube portion has a one-way valve located in the lumen. The bioabsorbable balloon is fixedly connected to the distal tube portion to define a balloon assembly. The bioabsorbable balloon is configured for fluid communication with the lumen of the catheter shaft at a location distal to the one-way valve of the distal tube portion of the catheter shaft. The balloon assembly is configured to be separated from the proximal tube portion of the catheter shaft by breaking the frangible link.

Disclosed in some forms is a process of limiting the impact of surgery on a nerve, the process comprising applying a therapeutic substance to the nerve during surgery. In some aspects, disclosed is a formulation for reducing nerve trauma comprising an active pharmacological ingredient adapted to intervene in the activation of pathways of cellular degradation within the nerve and a carrier adapted to reduce dissemination of the active pharmacological ingredient beyond the site at which its effect is intended.

Circuits and computer program products onboard and/or adapted to communicate with an scanner that electronically recognize predefined physical characteristics of the at least one tool to automatically segment image data provided by the scanner whereby the at least one tool constitutes a point of interface with the system. The circuits and computer program products are configured to provide a User Interface that defines workflow progression for an image guided surgical procedure and allows a user to select steps in the workflow, and generate multi-dimensional visualizations using the predefined data of the at least one tool and data from images of the patient in substantially real time during the surgical procedure.

Systems and methods for multi-modal sensing of three-dimensional position information of the surface of an object are disclosed. In particular, multiple visualization modalities are each used to collect distinctive positional information of a surface of an object. Each of the computed positional information is combined using weighting factors to compute a final, weighted three-dimensional position. In various embodiments, a first depth may be recorded using fiducial markers, a second depth may be recorded using a structured light pattern, and a third depth may be recorded using a light-field camera. Weighting factors may be applied to each of the recorded depths and a final, weighted depth may be computed.

Systems and methods for reducing pathogens near an implant are discussed. In some cases, the methods include reducing contaminants in a portion of a patient that has an implant and that is disposed interior to a closed surface of skin of the patient. The method can further include placing a conduit in the closed surface of skin and flowing an antimicrobial fluid into that portion of the patient to contact the antimicrobial fluid with a surface of the implant and tissue adjacent to the implant. In some cases, the antimicrobial fluid is then removed from the portion of the patient having the implant. As part of this method, biofilm near the implant can be mechanically, ultrasonically, electrically, chemically, enzymatically, or otherwise disrupted. Other implementations are described.