Philips launches Azurion with FlexArm to aid image-guided procedures

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Azurion
Philips’ Azurion with FlexArm

Philips launches its Azurion with FlexArm platform to aid patient imaging and positioning during image-guided procedures.

Azurion with FlexArm allows clinicians to intraoperatively visualise patient anatomy in both 2D and 3D. As the clinician moves the system, the image beam automatically maintains alignment with the patient, allowing consistent visualisation and enabling them to keep their focus on the treatment.

“With FlexArm, Philips’ engineers have overcome near-impossible geometric and mechanical barriers to enable clinicians to achieve clinical excellence in image-guided therapy,” says Barry Katzen, founder and Chief Medical Executive of the Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute, Baptist Health South Florida, USA. “FlexArm enables us to dramatically optimise procedures around the patient: we can get the optimal view of what is going on inside the patient without encumbering all of the clinicians that are working around the table. The result is an innovation that is not only clinically important, but also very simple and intuitive to use—a critical factor in the heat of a complex procedure.”

The range and complexity of diseases that can be treated with minimally invasive procedures continues to expand. Correspondingly, the procedures themselves are also becoming more complex, requiring more physicians from different disciplines to be at the patient’s tableside, working together in a highly coordinated way. As a result, the clinical team is required to carry out increasingly challenging procedures in a highly constrained environment.

Azurion with FlexArm’s innovative design provides flexibility and intuitive control, a company statement declares. Powered by a kinematic engine, the system moves on eight different axes, controlled with its single Axsys controller. According to Philips, simulation tests with clinicians have demonstrated the system’s potential to significantly reduce the repositioning of the patient, staff and equipment to improve access for minimally invasive procedures, including those that enter the body through the patient’s wrist—radial access— and to reduce the risk of unintentional pulling of wires and tubes, as well as saving time. The system is suited for Hybrid operating rooms that cater to multiple specialties in one room, such as a combination of surgical and endovascular procedures.

Azurion with FlexArm is the latest addition to Philips’ image-guided therapy portfolio. As the range of diseases that can be treated with minimally invasive procedures continues to expand and the procedures themselves become more efficient, the patient’s treatment experience continues to improve. They experience less trauma, and as a result their stay in hospital can be dramatically reduced—often returning home after one night in hospital, and for some procedures even leaving the hospital on the same day.

Since its global launch in February 2017, over 450,000 patients have been treated in more than 80 countries using a Philips Azurion system. The Philips Azurion 7 C20 with FlexArm is CE marked and has received 510(k) clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).


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