SafeOp Surgical Files for Ninth Patent

SafeOp Surgical Inc. has filed its ninth patent application for innovations surrounding the monitoring of somatosensory-evoked potentials during surgeries. SafeOp developed and markets the EPAD system, a neuromonitoring system that enables the detection of nerve damage and post-operative residual paralysis during surgical procedures. This latest filing is for the capability to reduce false positive alerts to nerve damage during surgeries. The company already holds patents for detection of nerve injury in the United States, Australia, Japan and China, and has several patents pending that include signal processing and high specificity in alerting to signal change, and on neuromuscular junction testing and spinal cord stimulator paddle placement.
 
 “Electrical noise from nearby equipment often causes false alerts that are time consuming to deal with,” said Richard O’Brien, M.D., M.B.A., SafeOp’s vice president of development and chief medical officer. “This new patent provides a method to condition the monitored responses and calculate an alert so that the likelihood of a false positive from a noisy signal is dramatically reduced while preserving the sensitivity of the monitoring to real changes.”
 
SafeOp’s EPAD system, which allows monitoring of both the spinal cord and peripheral nerves, was developed specifically for the rapid detection of perioperative nerve injury (PNI). PNI is a frequent complication of some surgeries (e.g., orthopedic, general, cardiac, or urological surgery), whereby peripheral nerves may be damaged due to unrecognized extended compression or stretching, or compromise of their blood supply. The EPAD system also allows easy-to-use quantitative monitoring of the neuromuscular junction to help detect another frequent complication, post-operative residual paralysis. This may occur when paralyzing agents have not sufficiently worn off at the end of surgery. The EPAD system provides real-time feedback, allowing caregivers to adjust the patient’s position in time to avoid nerve injury, or intervene when residual paralysis is present.
 
“We continue to innovate our EPAD system technology with powerful capabilities that will make it the most cost-effective intraoperative monitoring solution available,” said Gene Cattarina, SafeOp’s president and CEO. “With its unique ability to economically and efficiently acquire somatosensory-evoked potentials, the EPAD is appropriate for all types of surgeries and an ideal low cost alternative to expensive insourced- and outsourced-driven neuromonitoring for certain spine and other surgeries.”
 
SafeOp Surgical Inc. is a Hunt Valley, Md.-based developer of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved EPAD system. The EPAD system enables simple-to-use neurological monitoring in a wide array of surgical procedures where full monitoring—which requires the continuous presence of a technologist and neurologist—may not be indicated, cost-effective or feasible. SafeOp currently markets the EPAD system to medical centers throughout the United States.