2009 EACTS Techno-College Innovation Award to Clear Catheter Systems for its PleuraFlow system

Clear Catheter Systems, a private medical device company pioneering proprietary medical catheter anti-occlusion technologies, has been awarded the 2009 EACTS Techno-College Innovation Award for its PleuraFlow Active Tube Clearance System. The Techno-College Award is a worldwide competition to identify innovations with the potential to change the standard of care in heart and lung surgery. The award was established by the European Association of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery to recognize the most important technological breakthrough related to thoracic and cardiovascular surgery. The award was announced at the Annual Techno-College meeting in Vienna, Austria, on October 17, 2009 in front of an audience of leading cardiovascular and thoracic surgeons from around the world.

Clear Catheter Systems is developing its platform technology to actively prevent medical tubes and catheters from occluding. The company’s lead product, the PleuraFlow Catheter System, was developed for use in recovery after heart and lung surgery. “One of the most common ways to limit clogging is to use larger diameter tubes. These tubes, however, can also become occluded and significantly more painful,” said Dr. Edward Boyle, inventor of the technology and co-founder of Clear Catheter Systems. “We have found that active chest tube clearance with the PleuraFlow Catheter System improves post surgical drainage and limits the degree of blood clots retained in the chest, in standard sized tubes as well as the more minimally invasive size ranges.”

“There has been increasing interest in minimally invasive surgery, and the use of smaller diameter chest tubes to limit pain after heart and lung surgery,” said Marc Gillinov, MD, Cardiothoracic Surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic and co inventor of this technology. “The ability to miniaturize tubes is limited by the development of clots in smaller diameter tubes that prevent them from adequately functioning. Solving this problem is a great advance in the hope to make cardiothoracic surgery safer and less painful.”

The company expects its first clinical implantation of the PleuraFlow by the end of 2009 and commercial launch in Q1 of 2010.