Straub Medical Launches Capturex Filter Catheter in European Markets

July 1, 2013—Straub Medical AG (Wangs, Switzerland) announced the commercial launch of the CE Mark-approved Capturex filter catheter in selected European markets. Capturex is indicated for filtering of emboli from blood vessels during potentially embolizing endovascular procedures, such as treatment for deep vein thrombosis (DVT).

The company stated that the Capturex is placed in the vascular system temporarily through a minimally invasive interventional access. If placed in the inferior or superior vena cava during DVT treatment, Capturex may prevent embolisms from traveling to the lung arteries or paradox embolisms to the arterial system.

According to Straub Medical, the Capturex protection system—as a strictly peri-interventional device—is designed to overcome limitations of other filters, such as the inability to retrieve the filter, inability to remove massive clot load from the filter, limited filtration abilities, filter migration, and caval wall perforation.

The Capturex filter catheter features a self-expanding filter basket tethered on a wire-reinforced catheter shaft. The device's dense filter mesh captures clinically relevant emboli and debris from the bloodstream while maintaining vessel patency. Before removal, the filter can be cleaned by aspiration with suitable catheters. At the end of the procedure, the interventionist retracts the filter basket and withdraws the Capturex device.

Professor Dierk Vorwerk, Chairman of the Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology at the Klinikum Ingolstadt in Germany, commented in the company's press release, “This device has the potential to take DVT treatment to a new level. Patients who are judged as ‘too risky to treat' currently just receive medication to prevent worsening of their condition. Thanks to this new pulmonary embolism protection device, they might now become candidates for endovascular treatment.”