Tools for Laparoscopic Surgery

A family of surgical instruments for laparoscopic use are single-use handheld instruments that incorporate six degrees of articulating freedom. The instruments have been cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The set comprises a grasper, dissector, needle drive, and scissors that enable surgeons to perform minimally invasive approaches in gastric bypass, cardiac bypass, pulmonary lobectomy, and other general and urologic procedures. This EndoLink system offers a surgeon enhanced anatomical access and device control not available with traditional straight laparoscopic instruments.

"Our novel system can be incorporated into instruments as small as 3 mm and enable articulation similar to a human wrist. This gives the surgeon greater control and access that can provide important gains in minimally invasive surgery,” explained Kerry Pope, president and CEO of Novare Surgical Systems, Inc. (Cupertino, CA, USA), which developed the new set of tools.

Unlike traditional endoscopic instruments that feature four degrees of freedom (up/down, left/right, rotation, and in/out actuation), the EndoLink instruments also feature the ability to move the wrist left/right and up/down. These additional two degrees of freedom enable a whole new class of minimally invasive procedures and can significantly reduce the complexity and shorten the learning curve of a number of high-volume minimally invasive procedures.

"The EndoLink places the surgeon's wrist inside the chest,” stated William Mayfield, M.D., thoracic surgeon at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta (GA, USA). "Instruments that incorporate the EndoLink system are easy to use, intuitive, scalable, and allow the surgeon to perform endoscopically directed maneuvers that he or she could never perform before with conventional instruments.”




Related Links:
Novare Surgical Systems