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| Estimate of intraoperative blood loss on Gauss Surgical's Triton app. |
Silicon Valley's Gauss Surgical, the maker of an FDA-cleared iPad app for quantifying blood loss during surgery, announced the completion of a $12.6 million Series B round, raising its total fundraising haul to $24.6 million. The round was led by Seattle's Providence Ventures. Chicago VC Jump Capital also participated.
Gauss Surgical CEO Siddarth Satish told MedCity News that he's focusing on commercial growth of the Triton app. The initial emphasis will be on deployment of the app and associated blood sponges during deliveries and caesarean sections.
"You know blood loss will happen in any procedure, but in the situations where a mom bleeds at a higher rate than normal, it's difficult to tell if that's happening visually. You sometimes can't tell until it's too late. Their vital signs will change because the body is compensating before the bleeding. Blood loss happens, but this is all about early recognition. Early recognition really begins in the operating room," the CEO said during an interview with MedCity News. He's also investigating other applications of the blood loss monitor.
"The Triton System seamlessly integrates with surgical workflow and requires minimal training. Using the iPad camera, the system scans blood-containing surgical sponges that are covered in blood, counts the sponges, and sends the images to the cloud server for processing," the company website says. Then, the server estimates hemoglobin loss and sends the data back to the operating room in less than 10 seconds. The information is displayed on the iPad app interface.
The FDA gave de novo clearance to the Triton in May 2014. De novo clearance is for low-to-moderate risk devices that don't have a substantially equivalent predecessor. The Triton was used first used measure blood loss during cesarean section births in September 2014 by Magee-Womens Hospital in Pittsburgh.
- read more in MedCity News