Surgical Tool Would Reduce Scarring, Trauma

A team of University of Cincinnati students has reached the top levels of two national competitions designed to find the best new medical devices in the nation’s universities.

Members of the Single Port Solutions team placed in the final round of the 2009 American Society of Mechanical Engineers Innovation Showcase. They also placed among the top three teams in the BMEidea competition, sponsored by National Collegiate Investors and Innovators and the National Science Foundation.

The competition requires students to show their products are innovative and commercially feasible. If they win, they receive seed money to commercialize their device. UC’s team will travel from New York City to California in early June to present its work and accept its awards.

The UC team’s device, a single port laparoscopic access tool, allows surgeons to perform common laparoscopic surgeries with one entry point—located in the belly, which would decrease the risk of herniation from cuts in the abdominal wall,

Those surgeries are usually done through four or five entry points, said team leader and student Michael Wirtz.

“What our tool does is consolidate all the ports into the access tool,” Wirtz said. “Using our device, the surgeon is able to perform a normal laparoscopic procedure, like a gall bladder removal or appendectomy, through the single port. They’ll still be able to insert all the instruments they need while hiding the scar in the umbilicus—so you have little scarring and it reduces trauma and improves recovery time of the patient.”

The team, part of UC’s Medical Device Innovation & Entrepreneurship Program, includes three senior biomedical engineering students, one graduate student from the College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning and many faculty advisors.