Percutaneous procedures to divert blood flow from one blood vessel to another can be performed with intravascular catheters but demand a method to align a crossing needle from one vessel to another.Fluoroscopic imaging alone is not adequate, and Jeans it is preferable to have a sensor on one catheter that detects the correct alignment of an incoming needle.This can be implemented by generating dipole electric fields from the crossing catheter which are detected by a receiving catheter in the target vessel and, thus, can calculate and display the degree of alignment, permitting the operator to rotate the crossing catheter to guarantee alignment when deploying a crossing needle.Catheters were built using this concept and evaluated in vitro.The results show that accurate alignment is achieved, and a successful crossing can be made.
The concept is being further the gel bottle audrey developed for further clinical evaluation.