Irish Researchers Invent Device to Simplify Ear Surgery

Two Irish researchers have invented a medical device which has the potential to revolutionise how doctors around the world perform one of the most common childhood medical procedures.

Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) researchers Olive O’Driscoll and John Vaughan, co-founders of CIT start-up AventaMed, have just won a national innovation award for their V-Tube device — a ground-breaking, surgical instrument for inserting grommets.

An Irish manufacturer is lined up and the product is poised to undergo clinical trials soon.

O’Driscoll and Vaughan are preparing to pitch their idea to U.S. investors at a major medical devices exposition in San Francisco, Calif., later this year in a bid to secure funding to take the product global. Grommets are small drainage tubes which are inserted into a tiny incision in the eardrum to relieve pressure, and to allow bacteria and fluid to drain from the middle ear.

One in every 15 children undergoes the procedure before they reach the age of seven. About 3,400 such procedures are carried out in Ireland every year.

Currently, the 30-minute procedure is carried out in an operating room, with the patient under general anaesthetic, and requires high levels of manual dexterity, multiple surgical instruments and a medical team of four.

But after watching consultant ENT (ear, nose, throat) surgeon Michael Harney, M.D., perform procedures at a Cork hospital, O’Driscoll and Vaughan, — based at CIT’s Medic research center — developed the V-Tube device to make the procedure simpler. The pair received product design funding from Enterprise Ireland.

“It is a single-use, hand-held device which comes pre-loaded with a grommet. It makes fitting grommets as simple as piercing an ear,” O’Driscoll said.

The device allows surgeons to fit a grommet within minutes in their office without the need for a general anaesthetic. Vaughan said their invention potentially can benefit the patient, surgeons and medical system by cutting waiting lists and reducing procedure costs by more than half.

The device could help busy hospitals save up to 400,000 euros ($555,300) annually.

Vaughan and O’Driscoll won the MedTech Idol Competition at the Invest in Innovation (IN”) Medical Device 360° conference in Dublin this past spring after the device was assessed by a panel of venture capitalists and angel investors who had a combined investment fund of up to 6 billion euros, or $8.3 billion.