Nontoxic, variable-stiffness threads for dexterous cardiac catheters

Yegor Piskarev, a Ph.D. candidate at EPFL's Laboratory of Intelligent Systems (LIS). The flexibility and stiffness of the catheter can be adjusted during an operation © Alain Herzog / EPFL - Engineers at EPFL and ETH developed a variable stiffness catheter made of nontoxic threads that can transition between soft and rigid states during surgery. It may make minimally invasive surgical interventions, including the treatment of cardiac arrhythmia, simpler and more effective. Catheters are used in many surgical operations because they are minimally invasive. For example, to treat cardiac arrhythmia - an irregular heartbeat - surgeons can use a specific kind of catheter to access the heart, rather than opening the patient's chest. The catheter is inserted into an artery and navigated to the treatment zone.