WALTHAM, Mass – Corindus, which develops precision vascular robotics, announced today it completed the first multi-city, transcontinental percutaneous coronary intervention simulations in the U.S. across three network connection types – 5G wireless, dedicated fiber, and commercial public Internet networks.

Interventional cardiologist Ryan Madder, M.D., successfully completed 36 cases in the same day between Waltham, Mass., and New York City, as well as between Waltham and San Francisco. The demonstration, conducted on Oct. 24, was to highlight the telerobotic abilities of the company’s CorPath GRX System with different network connections and long distances, the company said in a statement. The remote capabilities for a live procedure are currently under development, and the system is currently not for sale in the U.S. Corindus said that its future availability cannot be guaranteed.

Across long distances

“We have successfully demonstrated that a physician can use a robotic system in a manner necessary to open a blocked artery despite being 3,000 miles away. This represents the next step in achieving our ultimate goal of providing remote cardiovascular care to patients suffering a heart attack or stroke who do not currently have access to potentially life-saving coronary and stroke interventions,” said Dr. Madder, of Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids, Mich. “Corindus’ technology enables me to have a live view of what is happening in the procedure room, while precisely controlling coronary devices in real-time with the robot from a remote location. Our study suggests it may eventually be possible for interventional cardiologists to use robotic technology to safely and effectively perform coronary procedures from any one point to another, anywhere in the country.”

The two locations were approximately 200 miles apart (New York) and 3,000 miles away (San Francisco), and all network types enabled low-latency connections, Corindus said. In 2018 and earlier this year, Corundus completed multiple simulated telerobotic studies up to 100 miles away, as well as the world’s first in-human telerobotic PCI procedures, performed in India by Dr. Tejas Patel, from approximately 20 miles away. The company said these demonstrations confirm that remote procedures can reshape health care by shortening the time to treatment for emergent medical events such as heart attack and stroke, expanding access to high-level care for geographically constrained and underserved patient populations.

“We are thrilled by this transcontinental procedure milestone we have achieved,” said Doug Teany, COO at Corindus, which was acquired earlier this year by Siemens Healthineers. “The successful completion of these procedures provides us with confidence and excitement about integration with future commercial 5G networks. 5G connections can open a new set of opportunities as we explore integrating telerobotics with capabilities such as artificial intelligence and edge-computing; although our successful experience with the public Internet connection today confirms that transcontinental intervention is already feasible on existing public Internet infrastructure.”

The Corindus CorPath platform is an FDA-cleared medical device that brings robotic precision o percutaneous and coronary and vascular procedures. CorPath GRX is the second-generation robotic-assisted technology that offers upgrades in terms of precision, workflow and extending the capabilities of procedures that can be performed robotically.