It's a scenario that often plays throughout rural areas in the U.S. – patients find themselves in desperate need of care, but are literally too far away to make it to see a specialist in enough time to receive treatment. Corindus Vascular Robotics (Waltham, Massachusetts) is taking a stab at this issue through a special partnership with Sanford Health (Sioux Falls, South Dakota) and The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust to launch a feasibility investigation for a remote robotics program.

In a bid to round out its commercial offerings for detecting heart attack and stroke, Boston Heart Diagnostics (Framingham, Massachusetts) reported the commercial launch of an FDA-cleared MPO (myeloperoxidase) test, a key biomarker for inflammation. Studies show that MPO levels are useful predictors of near-term (one to six months) risk of heart attack or stroke.

What if there was an application that could ensure the process of natural tissue growth from within the body, eliminating the use of external stem cells or animal-derived products? Such a treatment could overcome the limitations of the current standard of care and quite possibly reduce long-term medication and the risk of repeated surgeries.

A new catheter-based device that is under development by researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech; Atlanta) could provide forward-looking, real-time three dimensional imaging from inside the heart, coronary arteries and peripheral blood vessels. According to researchers the device, which provides volumetric imaging, could better guide surgeons working in the delicate spaces of the heart.