14 October 2004

Discovering medical devices

Engineers who have responded to the needs of surgeons and doctors and produced the latest in medical devices and will show their devices to interested manufacturers at the University of Dundee on Friday 15th October.

An instrument for Hand-Assisted Laparoscopic Surgery, also known as the Dundee MultiTool, and an array of instruments which have been developed for the keyhole surgeon pioneer Professor Sir Alfred Cuschieri by the University of Dundee’s Surgical Technology Group will be on show at Friday's event.

Tim Frank, leader of the Surgical Technology group explained: "Professor Cuschieri often makes suggestions to us that a device that does this or that would help him perform more effective surgery so we get our team together to design the tools."

Surgical instrument manufacturer Karl Storz have manufactured many of the team's inventions and are now selling them to surgeons all over the world.

Gillian Burch, organiser of the event said: "Discovering Devices is a great opportunity for the manufacturing sector to discover the skills and expertise available in the University and elsewhere in Dundee for designing innovative products. We have joined with the local NHS Trust, Medical Devices in Scotland and BioDundee to highlight licensing and other opportunities that are available here."

Professor Sir Alfred Cuschieri will be speaking at Friday's event giving his perspective on instrument design. Professor Eric Abel, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, will explain how better devices can be developed to improve hearing aids and Professor Tom Inns from the School of Design will address how design can accelerate innovation.

An exhibition of research projects and facilities from NHS Tayside, Scottish Health Innovations, the University’s Surface Analysis Unit, Kestrel 3D, Applied Computing and the Surgical Technology Group will show the latest ideas and designs.

Contacts

Professor Sir Alfred Cuschieri 01382 645 857
Gillian Burch 01382 344435

Notes for Editors

These are explanations of the instruments featured in the press photographs.

The instrument for Hand-Assisted Laparoscopic Surgery (HALS) Laparoscopic surgery is keyhole surgery in the abdomen. In the 'Hand-Assisted' approach an incision is made which allows the surgeon's hand into the patient's body. The surgeon's hand passes into the body through a latex cuff, which seals around the wrist. Passing the hand into the body in this fashion allows the surgeon to perform more intricate work than would be the case for conventional laparoscopic surgery, while maintaining the sealed internal atmosphere which is one of the major benefits of the 'keyhole' approach. The tasks which the internal hand might perform include dissection - so the MultiTool is equipped with surgical scissors - and suturing, so the MultiTool also includes needle graspers. The version shown in the photograph has spaces for a total of four instruments: tissue graspers, needle graspers, dissection scissors and suture scissors. Another variant of the device is equipped with only two instrument slots.

The device, comprising a loop of steel segments is the liver retractor. Removal of a diseased gall bladder is the most common keyhole operation - the proper name for this procedure is laparoscopic cholecystectomy. The gall bladder is located underneath the liver, so to reach it the surgeon must first get an assistant to lift the liver up. This is done by straightening-out the instrument, passing it through a keyhole 'port' into the body, and then curling it round on itself to form the loop. The liver is then spooned-up on the loop, and an adjuster in the end of the instrument can be used to obtain the desired lifting angle.

The device with the finger-like grasping features on the end (opened into a 'V' in the photograph) is the prehensile grasper. Most graspers used in keyhole surgery to hold tissue are like pliers - they open in a crude V. The prehensile graspers is made from four linked components - two on each side - which can be articulated like fingers to provide a gentler grip of delicate tissues, especially the bowel.

By Angela Durcan, Press Officer 01382 344910, out of hours: 07968298585, a.durcan@dundee.ac.uk