Vivasure Medical: Revolutionising Arteriotomy Management

Andrew Glass, CEO Gerard Brett, Co-Founder & COO Chris Martin, Co-Founder & CTO Until the early 19th century, surgeons had to resort to open surgery to diagnose and treat non-palpable diseases. In 1806, Philipp Bozzini invented Lichtleiter (or Light Conductor), a primitive endoscope, marking the beginning of endoscopic procedures. And a century later, in 1910, Swedish surgeon Hans Christian Jacobaeus made further advancement by performing the first laparoscopic procedure in humans. In the ensuing years, numerous physicians refined and popularised the approach for laparoscopy to arrive at today’s modern minimally invasive surgeries (MIS). Arguably, the advent of MIS has been the most significant leap in surgical discipline towards patient safety. By allowing surgeons to perform complex operations through tiny skin incisions, MIS brings a lot of advantages, including increased accuracy, decreased risk of complications, lesser pain, and shorter recovery periods. Thus, it is no wonder patients, surgeons, and the healthcare system as a whole have been increasingly pushing for the development of more minimally invasive procedures. However, this burgeoning popularity of MIS is subsequently turning the spotlight on a few of the shortcomings in the post-surgical domain that should be addressed to make minimally invasive procedures more efficient.

Take arteriotomy management (the sealing and healing of incisions on a patient’s body), for instance. While MIS has been swiftly advancing, arteriotomy management is one area that has primarily remained underdeveloped. Currently, the two prevalent techniques for arteriotomy management involve using suture-based or collagen-based vascular closure devices. But despite their benefits in arteriotomy management, both can lead to untoward outcomes during operative procedures. The suture-based approach, on the one side, requires pre-procedural steps that can cause considerable inconvenience for patients, like blood loss and pain. It also has a high failure rate, necessitating multiple attempts or sutures to close the arteriotomy site. And on the other side, even collagen-based vascular closure devices are not fail-proof in large-bore arteriotomy management. While collagen might be good at stopping bleeding, it could lead to bruising or major vascular complications, which can even be fatal.

Interestingly, changing the script in this regard is Vivasure Medical, an innovative medical device company. Vivasure has developed a patch-based closure device—PerQseal— specifically designed to seal large-bore arteriotomies in endovascular procedures. Notably, PerQseal’s patch is made from a bioabsorbable polymer that has been used in a variety of blood-contacting applications over the years, enabling the vessel to recover to its pre-procedure state (within 180 days). Moreover, PerQseal closes the arteriotomy site from inside the vessel. The ultra-low-profile patch has an abluminal surface that promotes adherence and healing.