St. Jude Medical Going Smaller with New Pain Treatment Implant

The Protégé MRI spinal cord stimulation system from St. Jude Medical can also be updated without another surgery, according to the company.

Chris Newmarker

St. Jude Medical recently announced FDA approval of its Protégé MRI spinal cord stimulation system to treat chronic pain.

The Protégé is the smallest MR-conditional, SCS, implantable pulse generator (IPG) available in the United States, according to St. Jude Medical. The Protégé is also the only upgradeable IPG on the market that allows its users to safely undergo MRI scans. St. Jude (Little Canada, MN) has also won FDA approval to use its 60cm Octrode percutaneous leads with the Protégé system.

In announcing the FDA approvals on April 30, St. Jude officials said the upgradeable technology in the Protégé is an improvement because it allows patients to access future SCS technology from St. Jude Medical, once approved, through software updates rather than surgical device replacement. In the past, most patients would need additional surgery to receive new product features and benefits.

"The launch of the Protégé MRI system provides physicians with a solution that offers the benefits of future therapy upgrades as they are approved without the need for a future surgery," said Robert Levy, MD, PhD, director of the Marcus Neuroscience Institute in Boca Raton, FL.

"The Protégé MRI system is an innovative technology advancement that optimizes chronic pain care without compromising a patient's potential need for future head and extremity MRI scans," Levy said in a St. Jude Medical news release.

Every shrinking, miniaturized medical devices is a major trend in medtech these days. (Check out this Qmed/MPMN story about the creation of Medtronic's tiny, leadless Micra pacemaker. And then there is St. Jude's own tiny Nanostim leadless pacemaker.)

Chris Newmarker is senior editor of Qmed and MPMN. Follow him on Twitter at @newmarker.

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