CARDIOLOGY & HEART SURGERY • CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
Riding the (magnetic) wave
TOP 10% 500+
For heart surgery outcomes Heart surgeries annually
55+ 100%
Cardiac-trained physicians 1-year heart transplant survival rate (2014-2016)
LEADERSHIP:
James Jaggers, MD
Chief, Pediatric Cardiothoracic Surgery,
The Barton-Elliman Chair in Pediatric
Cardiothoracic Surgery D. Dunbar Ivy, MD
Chief, Pediatric Cardiology,
Selby’s Chair in Pediatric Cardiology
Montview Biomedical Design’s MRI bike weighs just 40 lbs. and
transmits signals via Bluetooth to eliminate artifacts.
In a cardiopulmonary disease like PH, resting
physiology can hide markers of disease that
exercise, because it pushes the system to
capacity, reveals.
But you can’t get exercise physiology with cath.
You could put a kid on a treadmill and then do an
echocardiogram right afterward, but by then you’re
not really getting maximum exercise physiology.
The heart rate drops. Pressures decrease.
With 4D MRI, you just stick an exercise bike right
in the machine.
Currently, there’s only one commercially
available exercise bike for MRI. “And you basically
have to buy a crane because it weighs about 200
lbs.,” says Derek Eilers, MS, Principal Engineer
of Montview Biomedical Design and frequent
Children’s Colorado collaborator. “It’s bulky,
weighs a ton and can create artifacts in the
images because of what it’s made of.”
Eilers, a former bike racer who honed his chops
designing fitness equipment, figured he could do
better.
The first challenge, he knew, would be to build
it entirely out of non-ferrous components that
wouldn’t interfere with the machine. The second
would be to construct a design that could work
for kids and adults of a wide range of heights in a
narrow tube.
The design he came up with utilizes an elliptical
path to maximize knee clearance. It transmits
signals via Bluetooth to eliminate artifacts, and it
measures resistance, power and cadence. It also
weighs just 40 lbs.
“I’ve got a feeling people are going to want this
thing,” he says.
The heart of the Heart Institute team (from left to
right): Shelly Miyamoto, MD; James Jaggers, MD;
For cardiology healthcare
professional resources, visit
childrenscolorado.org/HeartHCP.
Eduardo da Cruz, MD; Laura Colon, ACSM-CEP; and
D. Dunbar Ivy, MD.
18
NEW CONSTELLATIONS
19