Therapy Areas: Cardiovascular
Toyoda Gosei & EBM Corporation partnership develops prototype "Super BEAT" medical simulator using e-rubber
2 July 2018 -

Japanese plastic parts company Toyoda Gosei Co Ltd and EBM Corporation Sunday jointly announced a prototype "Super BEAT" surgical training simulator that can reproduce the beating of the heart with extreme accuracy using e-Rubber, in cardiovascular surgery.

In 2017, the partnership decided to develop and promote a simulator that helps surgeons to efficiently improve their surgical skills. The companies aim to begin sales of Super BEAT in the fall of 2019 and are working to further improve its performance.

Under EBM's current BEAT simulator, the movement of the heart is simulated with the use of a shape-memory alloy that expands and contracts by heating.

However, EBM's Super BEAT high end version of this simulator uses e-Rubber, an artificial muscle that functions with electricity and which expands and contracts rapidly in response to electricity switching on and off. Regulation of fine movement is possible to mimic complex heartbeat patterns due to arrhythmia or the rapid heartbeat of children, allowing reproduction of an environment closer to that of actual surgery.

On 30 June 2018, about 20 cardiac surgeons participated in EBM's FIST surgical training centre in Fukushima City, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. The coronary artery bypass surgery simulator training was conducted using Super BEAT by professor Hitoshi Yokoyama of Fukushima Medical University.

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