Grant: Idea to Innovation

Minimally invasive endoscopic catheters are becoming today's essential diagnostic tools to tackle a variety of diseases. Commercially available fiber-optic catheters are however mostly forward viewing or limited in their visibility due to stationary viewing angles. Our research team at UBC has developed a novel microactuator technology enabled by the magnetic smart fluid called ferrofluid and demonstrated its application to the distal rotary scanner for endoscopic catheters. This I2I project aims to develop a side-viewing catheter device that embeds the developed distal scanner for high-resolution endoscopic imaging with an unobstructed circumferential viewing field. The active catheter tip will enable both high-speed and stepwise scans to allow for the use of the optical coherence tomography and other imaging modalities with the catheter. The scanner will be miniaturized to achieve minimally invasive diagnosis of lesions growing in small lumen covering a wide range of organs including coronary arteries, peripheral lung, urinary system, and biliary tract. Enabling the targeted device will remove the current need for an external catheter rotation apparatus for full circumferential scanning, improving the imaging performance while potentially making the system low cost. Preliminary results showed real-time imaging and analysis with promising results using animal models and live human tissue. The current project targets at commercialization of the device, bringing it to the optical catheter market as the first of the kind with the distal side-viewing scanner.