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Technical.ly Baltimore: CoapTech prepares clinical trials for its ultrasound-based device

Friday, March 11, 2022

The company's device uses ultrasound for feeding tube placement and hopes to reduce risk of radiation in young patients.

Medical device startup CoapTech‘s pediatric version of PUMA-G, its ultrasound-based device already available and FDA-approved for adults, was recently cleared for clinical testing at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, DC’s Children’s National Medical Center and Columbia NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City.

The study seeks to prove that the device, which the company has said allows for safer placement of pediatric feeding tubes, significantly reduces radiation exposure to children. Essentially, when a child needs a feeding tube, a CT scan is required to get X-ray images of the stomach that help verify the tube’s best placement after a procedure. Studies have shown show that such radiation exposure is significant enough to warrant concern. PUMA-G uses ultrasound and magnets to visualize tissue and organs in real-time, avoiding the need for possibly carcinogenic radiation exposure.

“It’s one of those things where that radiation exposure isn’t going to immediately generate cancer, but 30 years down the road, the risk factor in kids is much higher,” Jack Kent, CoapTech’s chief commercialization officer, told Techncal.ly.

Read the full story from Technical.ly Baltimore.