H.25 Catch 2022: Introducing an umbrella to catch showering thrombi during cardiac catheterization

Cardiac arrest is one of the primary causes of death in the US – and the world. When vessels of the heart are occluded, cardiac catheterization – now a widely available procedure universally – serves to alleviate the block and restore blood flow to failing heart muscle. Oftentimes, the hard calcified plaque requires the use of morcellation. The most feared adverse outcome of its use is showering of the plaque remnants into downstream smaller vessel branches and their subsequent blockage. This would further exacerbate cardiac muscle death as accessing and relieving the smaller vessels is a major challenge. 

Introducing an umbrella downstream to the morcellator would provide a safety net that would capture and retrieve the plaque pebbles without occluding the smaller vessels. This umbrella device is already employed in other bigger vessels of the body where emboli are prone to travel and occlude major vessels (inserted in the inferior vena cava to protect the vessels to the lung and in the carotid artery to protect the brain vessels). Translating that concept into the heart vessels can allow for safer catheterization results.