Medtronic has announced it has received CE (Conformité Européenne) Mark for SureTune2 software, which provides patient-specific visualization to help physicians make decisions on how to program - or tune - their patient's deep brain stimulation (DBS) therapy. SureTune2 is currently not approved in the United States.

DBS therapy applies mild electrical stimulation to precise targets in the brain in order to modulate specific symptom control. The brain targets are stimulated through lead(s) inserted into the brain and connected to an implantable neurostimulator through extensions running under the skin. A medical professional uses an external programmer to set and adjust stimulation settings.

Also read: FDA approves Medtronic's deep brain stimulation

Today DBS patient programming can be an interactive process, which can be time- consuming for the hospital and the patient. SureTune2 is designed for Medtronic DBS therapy and other DBS therapy delivery systems to help physicians more efficiently select the optimal stimulation settings on their programmer by visualizing patient-specific information in one comprehensive view including anatomy, physiology, and calculated stimulation field. Users can segment structures using a greyscale threshold within a region of interest, or by outlining shapes of interest from a patient image.

"Medtronic is committed to providing advanced technology to the multidisciplinary teams who are helping DBS patients, and I'm convinced that SureTune will provide them with easy-to-use tools to aid in optimizing therapy outcomes," said Dr Lothar Krinke, vice president and general manager of the Brain Modulation business in Medtronic's Restorative Therapies Group. "SureTune is a key aspect of Medtronic's commitment to providing integrated solutions for improving accuracy and confidence from surgery to post-operative DBS patient management."