Design of an endovascular morcellator for the surgical treatment of equine Cushing’s disease.

The research article details the design and prototyping of a new surgical instrument aimed at treating equine Cushing’s disease. The instrument, an endovascular morcellator, is guided through the horse’s vascular system to reach and operate on the pituitary gland.

I. Instrument Design

• The researchers designed a unique surgical tool called a morcellator. This tool was developed to be a non-invasive tool for the surgical treatment of equine Cushing’s disease — a condition that affects horses’ pituitary gland. The morcellator is designed to be navigated via the vascular system to reach the pituitary gland.
• The morcellator is composed of three main parts:
  • A radial rotating cutting blade for tissue resection
  • A flexible shaft with a cable drive for flexible actuation
  • A central lumen for transporting the resected tissue
• The morcellator’s rotating blade has multiple cutting edges, delivering the necessary force to resect tissue and draw it towards the second cutting edge inside the instrument.

II. Testing and Results

• The morcellator design was tested on a cadaver horse head to validate the viability of the design, the effectiveness of the actuator, and the feasibility of the endovascular approach.
• With an overall assembled length of 13.9 mm, the morcellator could be steered non-traumatically through the vascular system from the proximal end.
• The tests demonstrated successful navigation to the pituitary gland, where the morcellator was successful in sampling pituitary tissue.

III. Conclusions and Future Work

• The research provided promising early results on the design and feasibility of a novel surgical approach for treating equine Cushing’s disease.
• While the article details successful preliminary tests, more development and testing are needed before this method could be used in live equine patients.
• The researchers suggest that continued development of this approach could eventually improve treatment outcomes and quality of life for horses suffering from Cushing’s disease.