“Centers that can’t afford that overhead would have access to this treatment technology,” said Monsky. He directs interventional radiology at Harborview Medical Center, which draws patients from throughout the vast Pacific Northwest for emergency and elective care.

Wayne Monsky’s hands advance a catheter into a replica of a patient’s abdominal aorta
Monsky advances a VR sensor-tipped catheter into a replica of a patient’s abdominal aorta.
His partners in this effort are Dr. Steve Seslar, a specialist in cardiology and electrophysiology, and Ryan James, technology developer and software engineer. The three worked through CoMotion at the University of Washington to create Pyrus Medical, a startup that will commercialize the technology.

Someday, the trio thinks VR could allow interventionalists and endovascular specialists to conduct procedures remotely, far from the patient who’s receiving treatment.

“All the information you’re getting from the sensors on the catheters can be used in different ways. We can get positional information (about physiology and anatomy) as we’re doing our procedure … and we can learn from how those catheters move. Ideally that positional information could be fed into tele-robotic systems so that, just by turning my catheter here, in some room across the globe, the catheter is moving in that direction in a person in need there.”

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