A handle for maneuvering a catheter, comprises: a handle body having an outer surface and an inner surface, the inner surface defining a tubular passage extending along a longitudinal axis from a proximal end to a distal end of the handle body. The handle includes a coupling mechanism at the proximal end and a strain relief sleeve at the distal end of the handle body. The strain relief sleeve is adapted to irremovably secure a flexible catheter sheath to the handle; and the coupling mechanism is adapted to detachably connect the handle to a patient interface unit (PIU). The handle body is ergonomically sized and shaped for grasping by a single hand of a user, and is configured to linearly engage to and disengage from the PIU via the coupling mechanism. When the handle is attached to the PIU, an imaging core moves linearly inside the tubular passage without bending.

An intravascular blood flow sensing system is provided. The system includes an intravascular catheter or guidewire with a flow sensor that obtains flow data of blood flow within a blood vessel. The system includes a processor circuit that communicates with the intravascular catheter or guidewire. The processor circuit receives the flow data from the intravascular catheter or guidewire, determine a plurality of values based on the flow data, and outputs a plot of the plurality of values to a display. The plot includes peak associated with coronary reactivity testing (CRT). The processor circuit can also automatically change between a louder volume and a softer volume for audio output of the flow data. The processor circuit can additional communicate with a device other than the flow sensor (e.g., ECG, pressure sensor, etc.), and graphical representations of the flow data and the data received from the other device can be independent scaled.

A sensor including electrodes, a control module and a physical layer module. The electrodes are configured to (i) attach to a patient, and (ii) receive a first electromyographic signal from the patient. The control module is connected to the electrodes. The control module is configured to (i) detect the first electromyographic signal, and (ii) generate a first voltage signal. The physical layer module is configured to: receive a payload request from a console interface module or a nerve integrity monitoring device; and based on the payload request, (i) upconvert the first voltage signal to a first radio frequency signal, and (ii) wirelessly transmit the first radio frequency signal from the sensor to the console interface module or the nerve integrity monitoring device.

A method for assembling a catheter is disclosed. The method includes printing conductive traces on at least one flexible substrate and encapsulating the at least one flexible substrate to provide for environmental protection. The at least one encapsulated flexible substrate is inserted into a shaft of a catheter. Then, connectors are attached to each end of the at least one encapsulated flexible substrate. One set of the connectors are further attached to sensors located at a distal end of the catheter and another set of the connectors are further attached to electronics in a handle of the catheter.

A system and method are provided for a navigational feedback to a catheter during an arrhythmia ablation procedure. A set of electrocardiogram (ECG) signals of a patient's arrhythmia is recorded that correspond to an unknown target location to be ablated by the catheter. During the ablation procedure, pacing locations and ECG signals corresponding to the pacing locations are collected to derive a mathematical operator that maps a 12-dimensional displacement vector in the ECG space to a 3-dimensional (3D) vector in a physical space. This 3D vector corresponds to a direction and a distance that the catheter needs to be moved in order to reach the target location of the arrhythmia.

A catheter for diagnosing an abnormality of a blood vessel includes an elongated body defining an elongated lumen therethrough; and one or more transducers disposed on an outer surface of the elongated body. One or more transducers are configured to output an electrical signal in response to sound.

A steerable endoscope is provided with active steering control. An endoscope includes a flexible tubular body with first and second articulating segments, and a camera. In an embodiment, the endoscope includes an orientation sensor. A controller for the endoscope performs an automated analysis of an alignment between the motion axis of the endoscope and the viewing axis of the camera, and actively steers the endoscope to improve the alignment.

Disclosed herein are system and methods for monitoring a medical process. The system can include a plurality of electrodes coupled with a medical device, and a monitoring module electrically coupled with the plurality of electrodes, the module including logic stored in memory that, when executed by one or more processors, causes performance of operations including transmitting an electrical signal between a first electrode and a second electrode, determining an electrical impedance between the first electrode and the second electrode, and providing a notification to the operator when the determined electrical impedance is outside a predefined impedance range. The system can include logic stored in memory that, when executed by one or more processors, causes performance of operations including transmitting an electrical signal between a first distal electrode and a second proximal electrode and determining an electrical impedance between the electrodes.

The present invention relates to imaging a hollow organ. In order to provide an improved and facilitated imaging of a hollow organ of interest, a device (10) for providing three-dimensional data of a hollow organ is provided that comprises a measurement input (12), a data processor (14) and an output interface (16). The measurement input is configured to receive a plurality of local electric field measurements (18) of at least one electrode on a catheter inserted in a lumen of a hollow organ of interest. The measurement input is also configured to receive geometrical data (20) representative of the location of the at least one electrode inside the lumen during the measurements. The data processor is configured to receive pre-set electric field characteristics (22) associated with predetermined anatomical landmarks of the hollow organ expectable in the lumen in dependency of a type of the hollow organ. The data processor is also configured to compare at least one of the plurality of local electric field measurements with the pre-set electric field characteristics to determine matching electric field measurements. The data processor is further configured to allocate local electric field measurements to matching electric field characteristics based on the geometrical data to identify anatomical landmarks of the hollow organ by identifying those local field measurements in the plurality of measurements that correspond to landmarks of the hollow organ. The data processor is still further configured to generate a three-dimensional image data cloud (24) by transforming the allocated electric field measurements into portions of the three-dimensional image data cloud based on the identified anatomical landmarks. The output interface is configured to provide the three-dimensional image data cloud.

A catheter system may include a catheter lumen, first and second electrodes, and a sensor in communication with the first and second electrodes. The sensor may be configured to detect at least one of: a bulk volume of blood within a blood vessel and extravasation of a drug from the blood vessel into soft tissue adjacent the blood vessel. Other catheter systems may include a catheter lumen and a sensing chip coupled to the catheter lumen. The sensing chip may be configured to detect at least one of: a bulk volume of blood within a blood vessel and extravasation of a drug from the blood vessel into soft tissue adjacent the blood vessel.