Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects

Catheters are widely employed in vascular and cardiovascular disease (CVD) treatment. CVD is the leading cause of deathin adult Canadian men and women. In Canada, 70,000 patients die out of 500,000 hospitalized CVD cases per year.Catheters are not only important in these life-saving surgical procedures but are also inserted into body cavities or vesselsfor drainage purposes, to administer fluids or allow passage of other instruments for surgery on different parts of the body.Most catheters are straight. A variety of catheter shapes may be necessary to negotiate an area of the body that would notallow passage of a simple straight catheter in vascular surgery.The principal innovation of this project is to create a novel catheter technology whereby a catheters tip can be reversiblydeformed into controllable angles using a novel shape memory mechanism in combination with wireless MEMS technology.The control of the catheter tip bending angles or deformation allows the catheter to guide itself through tortuous paths inhuman blood vessels with minimum physical forces to be applied by the surgeon. Successful realization of this technologywill not only improve upon the current state-of-the art but also will lead to a change in clinical practice whereby a singlecatheter tip can be used to navigate through complex blood vessel geometries over a range of angles. This research willlead to innovative medical devices in vascular surgery, improved surgical procedures, and potentially enhanced surgicaloutcomes for patients. Drawing expertise from chemists, engineers, and surgeons, this the smart catheter technologydeveloped for vascular surgery in this project will serve as an ideal launching platform for applications in other surgicalprocedures in future.