AClosure aims to develop a vascular closure device that can rapidly and reliably seal arteriotomy sites to reduce bleeding and complications in minimally-invasive surgeries. Composed of six Cambridge students coming from diverse disciplines, AClosure first started in the Cambridge MedTech Foundation (MTF) Innovation Programme where we were presented with a clinical problem to tackle. Among the more than 150,000 transcatheter aortic valve implantations (TAVI) procedures performed annually worldwide, 6-8% suffer major complications that triple patient mortality. In the UK, complications cost the NHS an extra £1,500 per incident. We believe that our product, HydraDisc, can overcome limitations of existing devices which cause major complications, thus improving patient outcomes and reducing financial cost.
With our idea, we have won first place in the Cambridge MTF Innovation Programme, and were later invited to present it at the Association of Surgeons in Training (ASiT) International Surgical Conference 2021, where we were crowned winners as well. We are now moving to develop a prototype and bring our product to market.