A sneak preview of the trends to be featured as this year’s Compamed was given at the show’s Spring Convention earlier this year.
Trends
Held on 3 May, the Convention featured 45 participants and examined four different areas of implants in medical technology, including technology for manufacturing implants, packaging of implants, materials for implants and microtechnology in medical applications.
Speaking about the implant market, Dick Molin, medical market segment manager for Specialty Coating Systems (SCS), said: “The new combinations of types of technology and the integration of electronics, smaller and smaller components, high frequency and wireless technology as well as monitoring, recording and control systems are market drivers for implants at the moment.”
One of the major areas of interest within are so called active implants, in which an implant is fitted with an energy source.
Active implants are some of the most technically tricky and risky medical products, and place very high requirements on the research, development, production and approval undertaken for them. Innovations must always be developed in consideration of patient safety, reliability throughout their entire lifetime, biological compatibility and biostability as well as compatibility with other medical technology devices.
CorTec has developed an active implant for measuring and stimulating brain activity for long-term use. The company’s Brain Interchange concept consists of three components which record and stimulate the nervous system and evaluate brain signals in real-time to determine the level of stimulation needed.
“The driving premise behind our work is the realisation that these kinds of therapies need to be personalised,” said Dr Martin Schüttler, founder and CEO of CorTec.
Biodegradable materials for reabsorbable implants was a focus at the convention, with the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials offering input on the work it’s been doing to advance this field. The institute has developed a biodegradable magnesium implant with a fibrous structure as a solution for treating major bone defects. This serves as a guiding structure for the bone while it is growing, with this growth being particularly stimulated by the well-suited biomechanical properties of the implant. This structure also stimulates blood vessel growth simultaneously and the implant degrades as the healing process progresses.
Also featured at the convention was a look at how a new puncture system for blood vessels can help doctors cut down on procedure times for emergency cases that require blood transfusions.
Ebnet Medical has developed the Swordcath puncture system that contains all the necessary components to puncture blood vessels.
“Our system uses a puncture technique that is new and can be learned intuitively. It also combines a small puncture needle with a large catheter”, said Dr. Jens Ebnet, founder and CEO of Ebnet Medical.
Compamed 2018, held from 12 - 15 November in Düsseldorf (alongside the world’s largest medical trade fair Medica), will not only tackle the latest developments in this field but will also present many other fields of research, such as digitalisation and miniaturisation in medical technology.