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New Magnets Allow for Safer Steering Through the Heart

NEW YORK, March 11, 2005 -- NYU Medical Center today announced the latest addition to its state-of-the-art cardiology division with the Stereotaxis Niobe Magnetic Navigation System, a computer controlled navigation system used for electrophysiology and interventional cardiology procedures such as pacemaker placements, stent placements, and radiofrequency ablations. NYU Medical Center is the first medical center to install this system in the Northeast.

This machine uses catheters with magnetic tips, which can be steered through the body with large external magnets, under the control of a physician at the helm of a computerized guidance system. The use of magnets for steering will allow for more accuracy and will “level the playing field” between physicians as it will require less dependency on the manual skills and experience of cardiac catheterization specialists.

Stereotaxis is also safer as catheters used in traditional procedures usually have to be fairly rigid so they can be manually pushed through the tortuously curved blood vessels of the body, but Stereotaxis magnetic steering means that the catheters can be as soft as cooked spaghetti, and thus less apt to perforate the heart or a vessel. Previously, due to risks associated with their size or location, some arrhythmias and arteries may have gone untreated or the patient may have become a candidate for more invasive procedures.

“The tiny magnet placed on the tip of the catheter is designed to provide physicians greater control and precision as we navigate through the heart,” said Larry Chinitz, MD, Associate Professor and Director of Invasive Cardiology and Cardiac Electrophysiology at the NYU School of Medicine. “This will improve patient safety, decrease procedure time, reduce radiation exposure, and provide the potential for truly exciting new therapeutic options.”

At NYU Medical Center, Stereotaxis is now being used for electrophysiological procedures, such as ablating malfunctioning heart tissue that causes arrhythmias, but they could soon be used for any catheterization procedure, such as the implantation of stents or certain pacemakers, or even the delivery of chemotherapy drugs to the brain. Improvements in such procedures have the potential to impact many patients. According to the American Heart Association, there were over 1.4 million cardiac catheterization procedures performed in 2002. NYU Medical Center currently performs in excess of 2500 catheterization procedures annually, including more than 1000 electrophysiology procedures.

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