First Indigenous Device to Correct Ballooning of Brain Arteries

India will get access to the 1st indigenous flow diverter stent and a device that promotes better healing of the hole in the heart. The diverter stent will divert blood flow away from localized ballooning of arteries in the brain.

Key Points

• At present, Nitinol-based occluder devices are used for healing Atrial Septal Defect (ASD) or hole in the heart. These devices affect 8 out of every 1000 living babies born and are presently imported from other countries.
• Presently, India is not manufacturing flow diverter stents. These stents are required to divert blood flow away from localized ballooning of arteries or an intracranial aneurysm in the brain.
• Because of this challenge of flow diverters stents and devices, an autonomous institute of the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST) under the Technical Research Centre (TRC) has signed a Technology Transfer Agreements with Pune based Biorad Medisys for two biomedical implant devices.
• Two biomedical implant devices are- an Intracranial Flow Diverter Stents and Atrial Septal Defect Occluder.
• The devices are developed by the SCTIMST institute in association with the National Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore (CSIR-NAL) using superelastic NiTiNOL alloys.

Atrial Septal Defect (ASD) helps in the better healing of the hole in the heart and also has a softer edge for reducing the damage to adjacent tissue. The device is protected through one international patent application, two Indian patent applications, and design registration.

The flexible flow diverter stent will allow correct positioning of the device across the aneurysm that has been developed by SCTIMST. It possesses improved radial strength and kink resistance through a novel braiding pattern. This pattern makes the device adaptable and flexible to the distortion of the vessel boundaries. The device also has radio-opaque markers for radiographic visibility.