Interventional Systems’ Micromate Adds Planning and Navigation Station for CT Guidance

May 5, 2022—Austria-based Interventional Systems announced an addition to the company’s Micromate portfolio, which is a full-fledged miniature robotic platform for percutaneous procedures. The new feature is a planning and navigation station that makes its miniature robot available for use with CT scanners, allowing for physicians to use pre- and intraoperative scans to plan the intervention.

The most recent version of Micromate will become available in Europe in the second half of 2022. In the United States, FDA 510(k) certification is pending and expected by Q3 2022.

Interventional Systems unveiled the latest developments at ECIO 2022, the European Conference on Interventional Oncology, held April 24-27 in Vienna, Austria.

According to the company, the new planning capabilities can be leveraged to navigate and guide instruments to the trajectory automatically with submillimeter accuracy. All features fit into a one square meter console, with the robot being maneuvered from afar, and relying on a miniature, table-mounted camera. This substantially reduces radiation exposure to physicians and patients, the number of interoperative rescans, and does not negatively impact the available space in the room.

In the Interventional Systems press release, Reto Bale, MD, from Medical University Innsbruck, Austria, Alexander Kupferthaler, MD, from Ordensklinikum Linz BHS, in Linz, Austria, discussed the Micromate system. Dr. Bale will be one of the earliest adopters of the technology and Dr. Kupferthaler is a current user of Micromate, noted the company.

Dr. Bale stated, “Planning and navigation tools are fundamental for successful percutaneous procedures and clinical efficacy depends on them. I'm looking forward to incorporating the Micromate robot in my practice and further developing new applications whose outcomes can be improved with robotics.”

Dr. Kupferthaler added, “Precise image-driven targeting and highest accuracy while reducing radiation exposure are the ultimate goals in interventional radiology procedures. The Micromate all-in-one planning and navigation station with its intuitive handling and seamless integration to the angiosuite or CT workflow is a unique platform to add to patient safety and further perfect my interventions.”