spine Archives - Medical Design Sourcing

Advancing surgeon proprioception to create a new way of seeing in surgery

Light field technology and AI empowers surgeons with real-time feedback and enhanced perception for unparalleled precision and patient care.

Proprio designed its Paradigm system to help surgeons better visualize spinal surgeries. [Photo courtesy of Proprio]

By Tommy Carls, Proprio

In minimally invasive surgery, proprioception and spatial cognition play an important role in speeding up the acquisition of surgical skills, reducing surgical time, and reducing errors.

Surgeons develop and adapt spatial techniques over time to understand the difference between the feeling of a surgical tool entering fatty tissue or ligament. But how long does it take to develop that familiarity? Surgical navigation, robot-assisted surgery and other technologies have sought to help with this, but they don’t yet go far enough when it comes to visualization within the human anatomy.

With light field technology, we can acc…

5 growth areas where Medtronic’s CEO wants to invest more

Medtronic CEO and Chair Geoff Martha [Photo courtesy of Medtronic]

With Medtronic selling off and spinning off businesses, CEO and Chair Geoff Martha recently shared his strategy on divestitures and the high-growth areas where he wants to invest more.

Martha was speaking at this month’s Goldman Sachs Annual Global Healthcare Conference, where he also offered his perspective on labor conditions, supply chain issues, international markets, plans to increase R&D spending and the latest on the Hugo surgical robotics system.

How Medtronic — the world’s largest medical device company — and its leader think about which businesses to sell and which to build can help competing device developers, partners and suppliers better understand medtech’s changing landscape.

Medtronic’s divestiture strategy

Medtronic announced plans in May 2022 to spin off its kidney care/dialysis busines…

The ZimVie Tether helps kids with scoliosis — if they can get it in time

The ZimVie Tether system is FDA approved for adolescent idiopathic scoliosis under a humanitarian device exemption. [Image courtesy of ZimVie]

The ZimVie Tether is a groundbreaking system for treating adolescent idiopathic scoliosis, developed with the help of surgeons who saw an opportunity to improve the lives of their pediatric patients.

But for every patient the clock is ticking, as children are only eligible if they have enough growth ahead of them for the technology to make a difference. And all too often, insurance companies can delay the treatment so long that patients are no longer eligible if and when insurers approve the procedure.

ZimVie SVP and Global Spine President Rebecca Whitney spoke about the system’s development and commercialization with ZimVie Spine Global R&D Director Ryan Watson today at DeviceTalks Boston.

Re…

Irish researchers think their new material could enable better spinal cord repair

[Image from Alan Calvert on Unsplash]

Researchers at the University of Limerick in Ireland shared research demonstrating progress in spinal cord tissue repair.

The researchers, who conducted work at UL’s Bernal Institute, published their findings in Biomaterials Research.

According to a news release, they developed new hybrid biomaterials. They turned to nanoparticles built on existing practices in tissue engineering. As a result, they successfully synthesized the materials to promote repair and regeneration following spinal cord injury.

Maurice Collins, associate professor of the School of Engineering at UL led the team. So, too, did lead author Aleksandra Serafin, a PhD candidate at UL. Their research used a new kind of scaffolding material and a unique new electrically conducting polymer composite. This promoted new tissue growth and generation.

“Spinal Cord Injury remains one of the mos…

SeaSpine warns of COVID-19 hit to surgical revenue

SeaSpine Holdings (NSDQ:SPNE) is the latest medical device maker warning that the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant wave is hurting its business.

Carlsbad, California–based SeaSpine filed an update for investors with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, citing “ongoing uncertainty regarding the duration and severity of COVID-19 and/or staffing shortages on spine surgery procedure volumes throughout the United States.”

Get the full story at our sister site, MassDevice.