DEEP

Among minimally invasive surgical techniques, endovascular therapies have in recent years experienced a very important development for the treatment of neurovascular and cardiovascular diseases. During access to the treatment site, catheterization involves a technical gesture that can be very difficult in complex anatomical configurations. The aim of the DEEP project is to develop hardware and software devices to offer interventional practitioners innovative solutions for augmented endovascular navigation. These must allow the crossing of complex pathways as well as secured and controlled access to target sites that are difficult or impossible to reach at present. The research jointly exploits the analysis of imaging data and numerical simulation to design a new range of multi-curve catheters embedding active elements, and of decision support software tools to augment the performance of catheterization. Beyond the tasks related to scientific and technological developments (specifications and evaluations, information analysis and rendering, numerical simulation, hardware and software integration), a task specifically dedicated to the industrial exploitation of results is planned. DEEP project brings together a very complementary consortium. Academic partners have expertise in medical imaging and image-guided cardiovascular interventions (LTSI), contact and structural mechanics for biomedical applications (LaMCoS). Industrial partners have proven expertise in developing software solutions for interventional decision support (Therenva SAS), active catheter design and development (BCV) and multi-domain finite element software (ANSYS France). Clinical expertise is also integrated into the consortium (A. de Rothschild Ophthalmological Foundation, LTSI clinicians). Expected results are innovative medical devices (software and hardware) associated with care. They are spread over three levels: scientific, clinical and economic. The scientific production will result in original publications in the fields of information processing and predictive simulation for computer-aided medical interventions (CAMI). From a clinical point of view, DEEP aims to meet the demand of practitioners that is very strong for new medical devices ensuring a safe, fast and efficient catheterization in all configurations (tortuous anatomies or complex anatomical variations). The expected benefits are therefore primarily a clinical benefit by improving the endovascular treatment of patients. The DEEP project should contribute to strengthening France's competitiveness in the health technology sector. Proposed major innovations relate to the access phase during endovascular procedures. This "access" market is very important with an annual growth rate of 5% to 10%. BCV's active catheters are, to our knowledge, the only endovascular instruments with embedded activation currently in the industrialization phase. This integration of the actuation at the distal part of the catheters is an opening to the design of revolutionary tools capable of performing complex endovascular gestures, still impossible today. In addition to the development by Therenva of software solutions dedicated to active catheters, the development of decision support systems for the patient-specific choice of ancillaries currently available (passive catheters and guidewires) and augmented reality guidance of these tools, would represent a major and unprecedented advance. In a partnership strategy, ANSYS France aims to integrate its simulation and real-time calculation components into the Therenva and BCV solutions.