Introducer Design Concepts for an Epicardial Parallel Wire Robot

Cardiac gene therapies lack effective delivery methods to the myocardium. While direct injection has demonstrated success over a small region, homogenous gene expression requires many injections over a large area. To address this need, we developed a minimally invasive flexible parallel wire robot for epicardial interventions. To accurately deploy it onto the beating heart, an introducer mechanism is required.

Two mechanisms are presented. Assessment of the robot's positioning, procedure time, and pericardium insertion forces are performed on an artificial beating heart.

Successful positioning was demonstrated. The mean procedure time was 230 ± 7 seconds for mechanism I and 259 ± 4 seconds for mechanism II. The mean pericardium insertion force was 2.2 ± 0.4 N anteriorly and 3.1 ± 0.4 N posteriorly.

Introducer mechanisms demonstrate feasibility in facilitating the robot's deployment on the epicardium. Pericardium insertion forces and procedure times are consistent and reasonable.