Catheter-based operations for valvular heart diseases, coronary stents and robotic systems in the field of oncosurgery are topics that will be discussed at the upcoming MEDICA 2014 trade fair's MEDICA EDUCATION CONFERENCE — the scientific and interdisciplinary advanced training event — on November 13th in Dusseldorf, Germany.

The main focus of the conference will be telemedicine and robotics. The discussions at the conference may include how treatment of a patient can be faster, more reliable and more cost-effective with new information technologies.

Among the events will be a plenary informational event — "Modern Surgery Robotics using the DLR Micro System by Way of Example," — a cardiology seminar — "Coronary Heart Disease-Always Just Catheters," — and an oncology discussion forum — "Robotics in Tumor Surgery."

In the field of cardiology, the most high-tech products are balloon catheters, coated and biologically degradable coronary stents, synthetic cardiac valves and robotic systems.

Catheter-based heart valve procedures have been the center of attention recently for patients with aortic stenosis. Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) has been shown to be effective for high-risk patients who cannot undergo traditional surgery.

But now that there is a lot of work being done on new implants, and surgeons are getting more experience with the procedure, there is going to be a lot of advancement in diagnostic evaluation in the near future. There are already discussions about the procedure benefiting younger patients as well as patients with heart disease that is moderate or very low risk in the event of an operation.

Additionally, there are also discussions about whether catheter-based procedures could be a viable alternative to traditional surgery after failure of an organic prosthesis.

However, there are catheter-based procedures on the mitral valve that haven't received as much attention as TAVI due to the mitral valve's complex anatomy. Also, the data situation for those procedures for mitral regurgitation is less elaborate than TAVI.

Every second or third patient with severe symptomatic mitral regurgitation does not undergo an operation either because their left ventricular function is impaired, relevant concomitant disease, or advanced age. As a result, there are barely any therapies for a fairly large amount of patients with mitral valve insufficiency.

Many of the current studies focus on new stents with biodegradable polymers, polymer-free stents and completely bioresorbable stents.

Robotically-assisted procedures are known to provide a variety of benefits including faster procedures, precision, endurance, little or no radiation exposure and ergonomic advantages for the surgeon. But there are a few criticisms concerning costs, the learning curve and the lack of tactile feedback for the surgeon.

Because of that, the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) is creating a new system for tactile feedback that uses a unidirectional ultrasound sensor.

Robotic procedures are used to close atrial septum defects and also for bypass implants and mitral valve operations. Furthermore, new robotic systems have been created for percutaneous coronary interventions, catheter-based ablations for atrial fibrillations and minimally invasive operations on the aorta.

But there aren't many prospective controlled studies that compare robotic surgery with conventional surgery, especially in the field of cardiology, and that's seen as a major hurdle.

The robotic systems on the market that are used for cardiovascular procedures are Corindus Vascular Robotics' CorPath200-System, Hansen Medical's Hansen Medical Sensei System and Magellan Robotic System and Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci Robotic System.