Oxford Heartbeat Features on BBC Click
London, 4th February 2023 – Oxford Heartbeat is excited to share that the ongoing clinical impact trial of PreSize® Neurovascular was featured on BBC Click. The trial, which is independently run by Imperial Clinical Trials Unit (ICTU) and funded by NIHR’s prestigious AI in Health and Care Award, has been designed to collect crucial evidence about the clinical impact of PreSize Neurovascular’s use in surgery planning. BBC presenter Nick Kwek visited one of the hospitals taking part in the trial, to see it in action.
During the BBC Click episode, Nick Kwek and his crew were granted exclusive access to witness PreSize at Leeds General Infirmary, one of ten UK hospitals taking part in the trial, and meet Maria. Maria was diagnosed with a cerebral aneurysm and it was deemed necessary to undergo a minimally invasive brain surgery: through a small incision and guided by x-ray scans, a stent is placed into the affected blood vessel to divert blood away from the aneurysm and minimise the risk of the aneurysm rupturing (causing a stroke). The procedure requires incredibly high precision to ensure a correctly sized device (out of hundreds available on the market) is placed at exactly the right point in the vessel. Maria is one of 100 patients taking part in the clinical impact trial, where PreSize is used as a decision support tool for the clinical team to decide which is the optimal device to use.
The trial's Chief Investigator Professor Tufail Patankar explained that accurate sizing of the inserted devices is imperative because, “if you don’t get it right in a blood vessel, that can block the blood vessel and then you can get a big stroke and possibly die”, thus resulting in complications the treatment aimed to prevent in the first place.
BBC Click also interviewed Oxford Heartbeat’s CEO and founder, Dr Katerina Spranger. As Dr Spranger explained, there are limitations to the approach used in current clinical practice: “for the human mind it is actually impossible to compute which stent is best”. This is a problem, because even small errors can have catastrophic consequences and ”0.5mm in a person’s brain can make or break the procedure”. Dr Spranger adds that she feels a personal responsibility: “those minutes or hours in the surgical theatre will define the rest of a person’s life”.
During the episode, Professor Patankar used PreSize to create an accurate and interactive 3D model of Maria’s blood vessel tree. Then, he simulated different devices and used PreSize to calculate the best device with the optimal size and placement for treatment of Maria’s condition. The intervention is a complex procedure that must be tailored to each patient uniquely every time, and Professor Patankar praised PreSize as it “takes all my pain away”.
Rigorous tests and published studies have already shown that PreSize can be used to reliably inform crucial clinical decisions with high levels of accuracy and with its CE-mark certification PreSize can be used in clinical settings. The purpose of the ongoing trial, the first of its kind in the field, is to objectively and transparently demonstrate the benefit PreSize could have in improving surgical efficiency and clinical outcomes. These benefits are also anticipated to result in minimised unnecessary healthcare costs.
Oxford Heartbeat is proud that the BBC recognised our values, and the importance of rigorous clinical evidence generation to increase clinical and public trust in new technologies. We agree with Nick Kwek that, “new technology that can help those guys [clinicians] do a better job is pretty worth it”.
The BBC Click episode aired on 4th February 2023, and was broadcasted several times around the news cycle and around the world. It can be watched on BBC online for the next year, and also on Youtube.
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