Catheter navigates autonomously inside hearts in preclinical tests

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As reported April 24 in Science Robotics, the catheter found its way along the walls of a beating, blood-filled heart to a leaky valve in an animal model, without a surgeon’s involvement. Once the robotic catheter reached the leak location, an experienced cardiac surgeon took control and inserted a plug to close the leak. In repeated trials in swine, the robotic catheter successfully navigated to heart valve leaks in roughly the same amount of time as a surgeon using either a hand tool or a joystick-controlled robot.

Source: hms.harvard.edu