Dr. Craig Munroe, Associate Chief for Clinical Innovation for the UCSF Health GI Division and a member of the Clinical Advisory Board of San Francisco-based interventional endoscopy start-up Myka Labs, presented today at the American Gastrointestinal Society 2022 Tech Summit on how pancreatic cancer patients are poised to benefit from groundbreaking technology for endoscope navigation developed at Myka Labs.
For patients with gastric outlet obstruction–as seen in nearly half of pancreatic cancer patients–intervention is urgent to allow for adequate nutritional intake. The goal of restoring nutritional intake capability while sparing patients from major surgery has spurred interest in performing so-called bypass procedures not via incisions in the abdominal wall, but instead using an endoscope passed through the patient’s mouth and advanced into the stomach.
With conventional endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) and x-ray guidance, endoscopic gastrojejunostomy can be successful, but is an exceptionally challenging procedure.
As described by Dr. Munroe, with Myka’s new navigation technology, care teams will have the benefit of real-time, three-dimensional models of internal anatomy and of device components being used to perform procedures like endoscopic gastrojejunostomy. The real-time model, produced by the Myka Labs navigation engine by analysis of information streamed from an EUS scope along with miniature sensor arrays built into Myka Labs catheters used during the procedure, is output to a conventional display, where care team members can roll, pinch and zoom the real-time image to obtain an optimal viewing perspective to aid in successfully completing steps in the procedure that are particularly challenging.
The AGA Tech Summit, held in San Francisco and running from April 13 through April 15, is an annual event that brings together leaders in the GI field from academia, venture capital firms, start-ups, and others to look for ways to leverage technological advances to improve patient care.
Myka Labs, Inc., a start-up company pioneering advanced systems and technologies for less invasive interventions in the GI tract, is based in San Francisco, California and Boulder, Colorado.