On April 26, 2022, the vascular interventional surgery robot independently developed by Ruixin Medical successfully completed the clinical registration animal experiment. In this experiment, the safety, efficacy and accuracy of the Cardiovascular Interventional Surgery Robot were verified; the three instruments of the guide wire, balloon/instrument catheter and the guide tube were realized; the complete process of PCI (percutaneous coronary intervention therapy) was completed: coronary angiography, control of the guide wire, expansion of the balloon, placement of stents, etc.; and algorithms such as surgical navigation and intelligent operation were tested. The results of each experiment reached the expected goal.
The success of this animal experiment not only means that Ruixin Medical's vascular interventional surgery robot is one step closer to clinical application, but also means that its vascular interventional surgery robot truly realizes the whole process from surgical decision-making, surgical navigation to surgical implementation.
Based on the dual logic of enterprise development and medical industry, the vascular interventional surgical robot is laid out
It is understood that Ruixin is the only team in the field of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases that has the ability to implement intelligent algorithms and intelligent hardware at the same time. For the cardiovascular field, Ruixin Medical has previously launched ruixin score (RuiXin-FFR), Ruixin coronary intelligent post-processing platform and other products, and has made a name for itself in the field of AI medical imaging diagnosis and treatment.
As a leading enterprise in the field of AI imaging diagnosis and treatment, why did Ruixin Medical choose to lay out vascular interventional surgical robots?
Dr. Ma Jun, CTO of Ruixin Medical, introduced: "This is the result of the logical consideration of enterprise development and medical industry. ”
On the one hand, since its inception, ruixin medical mission has been to "let each blood vessel get the earliest diagnosis and the most accurate treatment", and is committed to creating a diagnosis and treatment platform for the intelligent integration of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular intelligence. Therefore, ruixin relies on artificial intelligence technology to develop ruixin score (ruixin-FFR) to improve diagnostic accuracy, intelligent imaging system to assess plaque risk, auxiliary platform for surgical plan design, and postoperative chronic disease management system, which together constitute the key chain of vascular disease diagnosis and treatment, including large-scale screening, accurate detection, preoperative intraoperative guidance, postoperative chronic disease management and postoperative follow-up. However, this chain also needs to make up a very crucial link to form a truly closed loop: surgical execution.
In order to supplement the closed loop of vascular disease diagnosis and treatment and create a full-process solution for vascular diseases, Ruixin Medical has created a vascular interventional surgical robot. At the same time, Ruixin Medical connects coronary intelligent post-processing system, RuiXin-FFR and other products through vascular interventional surgical robots to build an overall ecosystem of front and back connections and improve its core competitiveness.
On the other hand, through in-depth communication with clinical experts, Ruixin Medical understands that there are still many pain points in the current vascular interventional surgery.
First, doctors need to wear 8-20 kg of radiation-proof lead clothing and perform vascular interventional surgery under X-rays. Heavy lead coats, long standing and high-intensity work will undoubtedly affect the doctor's attention and energy, and aggravate the fatigue of the surgeon. In the long run, it will also increase the risk of occupational diseases such as spinal disease and cataracts.
Second, current vascular interventional surgery is still not precise enough. When the human hand operates the guide wire and catheter, there will be jitter, displacement and other phenomena. At the same time, affected by medical imaging, the doctor's clinical experience and other factors, there will also be a misalignment and incomplete match between the treatment instruments and the lesion site during surgery.
Third, vascular interventional surgery has a long learning curve, clinicians need a long training cycle to carry out related surgeries, and the surgical experience and surgical level of the doctor group are uneven.
These pain points are not only present in vascular interventional surgery, but also in other surgeries. Da Vinci surgical robots set the benchmark for solutions for the industry. Surgical robots are not only an effective solution to solve the current clinical pain points of cardiovascular intervention, but also a blue ocean in the medical industry.
Based on the above-mentioned enterprise development logic and the development logic of the medical industry, ruixin medical layout vascular interventional surgery robot can be said to be an inevitability.
Relying on core technology,
Resolves the pain points of vascular interventional surgery
According to reports, the application scenarios of ruixin medical vascular interventional surgery robot mainly include cardiovascular interventional surgery, peripheral interventional surgery and nerve interventional surgery, including cardiac stent surgery, coronary balloon angioplasty, thrombosis clearance, aneurysm interventional embolization and other surgical procedures.
At present, the annual volume of cardiovascular interventional surgery has exceeded one million cases, and it still maintains rapid growth, and studies have shown that the number of PCI operations in China will reach 2.5 million to 3 million cases in 2030. Peripheral interventional surgery and neurointerventional surgery are also promoted by related enterprises, and the penetration rate has accelerated, especially in China's neurointerventional surgery, which has maintained a 30% growth rate in recent years, bringing greater and greater pressure and challenges to the catheterization room of the hospital.
The rapid increase in the volume of vascular interventional surgery provides an opportunity for surgical robots to solve the clinical pain points that are urgently needed.
For the problem of radiation and overweight radiation protection clothing, Ruixin Medical has designed a master-slave structure with completely independent property rights. Unlike traditional surgery, the surgeon does not need to stand next to the operating table, but operates the main end outside the operating room and controls the slave end next to the operating table to perform the operation, thus avoiding radiation and other problems. Through the lever at the main end, the doctor can manipulate three instruments: the guide wire, the balloon/stent catheter, and the guide tube. From the end is a sophisticated mechanical structure that mimics the design of human hands, and can complete a variety of movements flexibly like a human hand.
"Through the vascular interventional surgery robot, the doctor can complete a complete vascular interventional surgery, including the propulsion and rotation of the guide wire, the adjustment of the guide tube, the expansion of the balloon, the placement of the stent and a series of operations."
Control from the main end bracket
Clinicians perform surgery that pays attention to "feel". Instruments such as catheter catheters are subjected to different forces in the normal vascular segment and at the lesion, and experienced surgeons are often able to successfully complete the operation based on accurate force feedback. Therefore, vascular interventional surgical robots also need precise force feedback systems.
Release from the end balloon
In this regard, Ruixin Medical and the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences reached a cooperation to develop "two-way force feedback technology". Through the two-way force feedback technology, the doctor who controls the main end will sense the force of the instrument such as the guide wire through the force measuring device of the end robotic arm, improve the operation feel, and more accurately control the vascular interventional surgical robot.
In addition to the two-way force feedback technology, Ruixin Medical also develops real-time surgical navigation technology based on advanced image algorithms to provide visual feedback for doctors. Force feedback + visual feedback will become a weapon for efficient surgery.
Control of the main guide wire
For the problem of surgical precision, compared with manual operation, vascular interventional surgical robot itself is synonymous with "precision". For example, if the guide wire is moved forward by 1mm, the human hand can only rely on the experience of the surgeon, and the vascular interventional surgery robot can accurately move forward by 1mm. At the same time, the vascular interventional surgical robot will not have hand shaking, tremor, etc., avoiding problems such as puncture of blood vessels caused by jitter and displacement of instruments such as guide wires.
Control the stent catheter from the main end
For the problem of long learning curve, Ruixin Medical relies on its advantages in intelligent algorithms and medical imaging to combine intelligent functions such as intelligent diagnosis of "morphology + function", preoperative surgical planning, and intraoperative real-time image navigation control with vascular interventional surgery robots to help doctors find lesion locations, calculate the real-time location of treatment instruments such as stents, and assist the promotion of instruments such as guide wires and catheters, thereby greatly shortening the training cycle.
In fact, this strategy is fundamentally different from the vascular interventional surgical robots on the market. The implementation of the operation is important, and the decision of the operation is more important. The clever magician not only has a flexible hand, but also has an accurate picture reading eye and an experienced brain. At present, although most of the vascular interventional surgical robots in research can help the surgeon improve the ability of the "hand", the help for the "eye" and "brain" of the surgeon is limited.
And this is the advantage of Ruixin. As a company that started with artificial intelligence algorithms and developed a complete diagnostic and treatment integration product matrix, Ruixin Medical applies intelligent imaging software such as Ruixin score (RuiXin-FFR), Ruixin coronary intelligent post-processing platform, and three-dimensional navigation to vascular interventional surgery robots to help doctors improve the ability of "eyes"; applies intelligent algorithms such as surgical planning, contrast FFR, simulated stent insertion scheme, plaque risk assessment system and other intelligent algorithms to vascular interventional surgical robots to help doctors improve the ability of "brain".
In this way, Ruixin Medical combines its original artificial intelligence and medical imaging technology with vascular interventional surgery robots to assist doctors from the three aspects of eyes, brain and hands, helping doctors to complete complex operations more accurately and efficiently.
In addition, when the vascular interventional surgery robot is mass-produced and applied on a large scale, it will rely on remote surgical technology to help sink medical resources. In the past, patients with strict treatment time windows have missed the best treatment time because primary medical institutions lack sufficient medical resources. Nowadays, after installing vascular interventional surgery robots in primary medical institutions, top experts thousands of miles away can carry out surgery for patients treated in grass-roots hospitals through vascular interventional surgical robots to achieve timely treatment.
Three advantages,
Rapid propulsion of vascular interventional robots
According to reports, Ruixin Medical's vascular interventional surgery robot has developed rapidly since the establishment of the project in August 2020: from product establishment to completion of technical verification, it takes only 11 months; from laboratory animal experiments to the completion of product packaging, it takes only 6 months; from product packaging to the completion of clinical registration animal experiments, it takes only 2 months.
Milestone event of Ruixin Medical Vascular Intervention Robot
Why can Ruixin Medical promote vascular interventional surgical robots so quickly?
First of all, the core team of Ruixin Medical has the gene to develop surgical robots, and the three founders have been associated with machinery and medicine from a very early age. For example, CEO Dr. Zheng Lingxiao graduated from the Department of Mechanical Science of Johns Hopkins and has more than 10 years of experience in biosymological research; Chief Scientist Lan Hongzhi is a master's degree in the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Tsinghua University, who worked as a researcher in the Cardiovascular Simulation Laboratory of Stanford University and has a deep foundation in the field of biomechanics; Dr. Ma Jun, CTO, has developed lung cancer biopsy robots as a core personnel of Da Vinci Surgical Robot Company, and has rich experience in machine learning, image-guided surgery, robot intelligent control and other technologies.
Secondly, Ruixin Medical has a strong interdisciplinary R&D team, covering many fields such as bio-simulation, intelligent algorithms, and mechatronics. At the same time, its team is not only a master in their respective fields, but also has common values, and the combination of people can play a 1+1>2 effect.
Dr. Ma Jun added: "We often debug the machine until midnight, even on weekends, without rest, and continue to iterate and optimize the accuracy and safety of vascular interventional surgical robots. ”
Finally, Ruixin Medical has carried out extensive and in-depth cooperation with many scientific research institutions and clinical experts. For example, Ruixin Medical has cooperated with the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the China Cardiovascular Doctors Innovation Club (CCI) to accelerate technological innovation, and has in-depth exchanges with top medical experts in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong to optimize the application of vascular interventional surgical robots.
Benefiting from the above three reasons, Ruixin Medical not only quickly promoted the vascular interventional surgical robot project, but also ensured the safety and experience of the product, laying a solid foundation for future market promotion.
Aiming at the problem of large-scale mass production,
Expand the breadth and depth of your robots
Nowadays, there is a major pain point in the surgical robot industry: the special disposable surgical box equipped with it is complex in structure, expensive in cost, and difficult to apply on a large scale. According to reports, the disposable surgical box is equivalent to "wearing gloves" for the surgical robot, after completing a surgery, a pair of gloves (disposable surgical box) can be changed to carry out the next operation. The lack of disposable surgical kits can lead to serious problems such as cross-infection. Therefore, disposable surgical boxes are the core technology that determines whether surgical robots can be widely used in real clinical scenarios.
In this regard, Ruixin Medical has developed a safe, simple and efficient disposable surgical box. Dr. Ma Jun, CTO of Ruixin Medical, said: "Up to now, Ruixin Medical has fully mastered the production process of this disposable surgical box and can achieve large-scale mass production. ”
Ruixin Medical Vascular Interventional Surgery Robot Clinical Registered Animal Experiment
Dr. Ma Jun finally told Arterial Network: "Ruixin Medical also plans to lay out vascular interventional surgical robots from two dimensions: depth and breadth. ”
In terms of depth, Ruixin Medical Plan further improves the closed loop of "preoperative planning, real-time navigation, and precision surgery" and improves the fluency of its intelligent algorithm and the combination of vascular interventional surgery robots.
In terms of breadth, Ruixin Medical plans to develop surgical robots for different application scenarios, broaden the indications, and benefit the health of more and more patients.
*Cover image source: 123rf