Editorial | Review of the 2012 BSIR Conference | Which Medical Device

 

This years BSIR was held in Bournemouth, which is one of my favourite venues. The meeting had a record attendance from both delegates and industry and covered a wide range of topics. 

 

The meeting kicked off with a plenary session on patient safety, focussing on a film 'The system' made by the BSIR with The Health Foundation and TVC. The film tells the story of a patient undergoing a PTC which goes wrong leading to devastating long term consequences for the patient and family. There is then discussion with the key figures working out where 'the system' has gone wrong. It elegantly reinforces the use of the radiology patient checklist prior to procedures. This is something that was taken on board years ago in the airline industry, more recently in surgery and now in interventional radiology. The full film was shown later in the day and well received.

 

Sumaira Macdonald gave an excellent talk on drug eluting technology in peripheral vascular disease covering the evidence from most of the major trials. I followed most if it but am still confused in areas! Some of the evidence is covered in her editorial here.

 

Off label device use was once again topical and I learned a few interesting facts here. If you use a device 'off label' i.e. for a procedure or in a location for which it is not licensed then you legally become the manufacturer of that device and are responsible for a whole lot more if things dont go according to plan. I think we have all used arterial stents in the venous system and angiographic catheters in the urinary tract! There are now two stents specifically licensed for venous use, the Cook Zilver Vena and Optimed Sinus-XL. Now these are available I wonder where we stand using other stents in the venous system? I suspect we are OK given there is such a body of evidence for their use. Nevertheless we should always council patients when using devices 'off label' and should also have the permission of the medical director. There are going to be many busy medical directors post BSIR!

 

Professor Ziv Haskall was a guest speaker and gave two excellent talks on TACE and a 'Tour de Tips'. These demonstrated his great expertise and breadth of knowledge of these topics (and cycling). Hopefully most of the sessions will be available for viewing in the future on the BSIR website. (The BSIR is also working in partnership with NHS Improvement to develop a quality framework for IR services).

 

Once again there was lots of kit to see in the exhibition hall and several stands making the most of IRs' competitiveness. Bard had a great device with a pressure gauge measuring the amount of force you could generate whilst inflating one of their angioplasty balloons and a board of top scorers. They were also showing their especially long SFA 'Lifestent' along with one of my favourite balloons the Reekross.

 

Renal denervation (RND remains very topical with an interesting session focussing on the theory behind RDN, current technology and possible future applications including a role in treating heart failure and diabetes. There are several new devices on the market and many more in development. Our current editorial covers many of these. 

 

Merit were showing off their Laureate wire , a Terumo alternative and once again competitiveness crept in when timed to get it into a renal branch vessel on a phantom using their SeaDragon torque device. I have used this wire on two occasions now and found it very similar to a Terumo.

 

BVM had a great range of GI/biliary stents and Dr Laasch put them through their paces in one of the technological workshops.

 

Cordis were demonstrating the Exoseal (imminently back on the market) and Outback devices. Two areas in which there is newer competition from other companies, for example the Offroad re-entry device from Boston. 

 

One last device that caught my eye was the Supera Veritas stent from IDEV technologies. This seems to actually have as much radial force as the manufacturer says, i.e. lots and lots, but I believe has a slightly quirky delivery system that allows the stent to be compressed and stretched where needed.

 

There were of course hundreds of other devices on show and many more excellent sessions at the meeting. Let us know if there is any device you would like us to add to Which Medical Device and of please do comment upon and rate any devices on the site you have used.

 

User comments: Review of the 2012 BSIR Conference