Octopus®
Medtronic's Evolution Tissue Stabilizer
Medtronic Octopus® Evolution Tissue StabilizerMedtronic, Inc. introduced the Medtronic Octopus® Evolution Tissue Stabilizer, the latest in its 10-year series of cardiac surgery instruments. The Octopus Evolution tissue stabilizer is used in beating-heart surgery, with suction pods holding the surface tissue of the heart stable while the surgeon attaches a transplanted vessel around blockages in the coronary arteries. This latest stabilizer provides a new range of options to help the surgeon easily position the device on any target area of the heart surface, stabilize the suture site to a degree unattainable before, and then work with unimpeded view as the bypass is sutured in place.
Enhanced Features
The Octopus Evolution provides new levels of flexibility, stability and ease of use with enhancements such as:
- The arm supporting the suction pods provides a greater degree of stability, flexibility, range of motion for ease of positioning, and longer effective reach to targeted vessels
- Combining the articulating head link that provides a new range of motion unseen in past devices with the patented Octopus suction pods, which allows the head to be positioned with the pods pointing up, down, or to the side
- The device’s head link designed with a lower profile and surgeon-controlled pod spread, which aids in providing the appropriate visualization of the target area
- An enhanced device clamp and turret assembly that have made the device much easier to set up on any location on the sternal retractor
Teamed with the Medtronic Starfish® or Urchin Heart Positioner, the Octopus Evolution provides a key technology to allow “off-pump” or “OPCAB” surgery on the beating heart. Off-pump surgery has become an attractive alternative to the traditional heart-lung machine, which is used to pump and oxygenate the patient’s blood if the heart must be stopped for repairs.
Off-pump surgery gaining support
Recent research works on OPCAB (off-pump coronary artery bypass) have illustrated the advantages it has over CCABG (conventional coronary artery bypass). The most recent evidence includes the 2004 ISMICS Consensus data.These studies conclude that OPCAB should be considered as a safe alternative to conventional bypass surgery as it effectively reduces perioperative mortality, morbidity and resource utilization in high-risk and mixed risk patients.1 In addition, OPCAB surgery can reduce the need for inotropes, documents lower risk for women and is more effective therapy for the older patient and patients with renal disease.
