Cook’s latest offering consists of a disposable, sterile sheath and a visualization source that is reusable up to 10 times. The wand is a bundle of fiber optics at 9 French. The disposable sheath decreases the possibility of patient-to-patient contamination.

The cost of the system is 50% less than a normal endoscopic system and it is available on the shelf. Physicians who don’t require a cystoscopy or ureteroscopy can use the system to manage stone, kidney, and bladder procedures. Creissel believes the systems enables hospitals to extend their capabilities to help patients without needing to invest so much in capital equipment.

“We’ve seen curiosity from physicians. They note that their hospitals often have a limited number of traditional scopes and that it takes time to clean and sterilize those for use. This system enables them to work quickly.”

The cost efficiencies could be a real boon to hospitals. Creissel estimates that 2 million ureteroscopies are done globally, and 800,000 are done in the United States. Further, 6.6 million cystoscopies are performed globally each year, with 2.6 million taking place in the United States.

The device is available now in the United States and Europe and will be launched globally. “The system has applications for those countries that don’t have capacity to have the same equipment seen in Western hospitals,” Creissel says.

--Heather Thompson is editor in chief for MD+DI. Meet up with her at Orthotec, June 5-6. 

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