Cartesio: A software tool for pre-implant stent analyses

Abstract

Quantitative angiography has becoming largely used in interventional cardiology thanks to positive outcomes in terms of patients survival indexes and life quality. This technique is based on positioning a medical stent in a laparoscopic intervention to cure coronary stenoses. Patients gain an immediate benefit from such a procedure by avoiding an open-heart surgery procedure. Stent positioning is guided by using contrast liquid and angiographic X-Rays images, which are used to define stent dimensions. Physicians may have difficulties in optimally estimating the stenosis size in order to choose the most appropriate stent mainly because there is no absolute reference on the angiographer screens. In this paper we present an innovative software tool able to assist the physician pre-implant analysis and thus supporting an optimal stent choice. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.