FP-Catheter

New micro-catheter for accurate diagnosis of blood flow (F) and pressure (P) in small blood vessel

Early detection of microvascular disease is extremely important for the prevention of heart attack and stroke and can thereby reduce 1) mortality and morbidity of patients and 2) the risk of any future CVD. Today, MVD is poorly visualised by standard techniques, such as coronary angiography or FFR guidewire tools, as these procedures cannot differentiate between epicardial and microvascular disease. Assessment of the microvasculature is extremely challenging because of the variety of pathogenetic mechanisms, the poor anatomic resolution and the potentially patchy nature of the disease. The main symptom of MVD is chest pain, but up to 50% of the patients with chest pain have an un-known diagnosis, which leads to weak treatment. Today’s devices can identify stenosis in the large arteries (epicardia), and the physician can then decide on the correct medical treatment of the disease. Unfortunately, these devices are not able to identify narrowing in the small blood vessels.

In the Eurostars project FP-Catheter, Medyria AG and VistaMed Ltd. aim to jointly develop the first micro-catheter based system for accurate diagnosis of small blood vessel diseases (SBVd). The FP-Catheter device will be able to detect narrowing in the SBVs by measurement of the microcirculatory resistance (iMR) index. We will bring together Medyria’s new sensor technology for blood flow velocities measurement and catheter concept with VistaMed’s catheter design and manufacturing expertise to deliver a validated prototype of this minimally invasive diagnostic tool, a class III medical device, combined with a graphical user interface for analysis, ready for clinic testing.

• VistaMed Ltd., IE