Pandemic sparks clinician interest in a new wrist fracture treatment

Innovative device picked for clinical trial by Columbia University USA

A new treatment device for broken wrists, Zero-Cast Wx, developed by a New Zealand surgeon, Dr Pranesh Kumar (North Shore, Auckland), has attracted significant interest from patients and doctors around the world looking for ways to provide safer patient contact during the pandemic.

Zero-Cast Wx offers a more patient-friendly, comfortable, less expensive treatment for fractured wrists (distal radius fractures).

The rapid patient fitting of a Zero-Cast device contrasts with the lengthy application and removal times associated with traditional plaster cast treatments. This means that Zero-Cast patients spend significantly shorter time visiting hospitals or clinics.

Doctors and rehabilitation therapists have significantly increased telemedicine consultations during Covid-19 using video consultation (FaceTime, Zoom, etc). Healthcare has adapted to allow the monitoring of patients and their rehabilitation via this new format. Zero-Cast’s open design allows an easy online visual check-up between the patient and clinician, whereas current treatments (plaster and fibreglass casting) must be cut-off the patient’s limb at a hospital, prior to a visual or X-ray check-up.

Leading healthcare specialists around the globe have highlighted the recent changes to delivery of care. There has been a noticeable focus on minimizing patient exposure to the ‘risky’ hospital and clinic environment during the pandemic and at ‘peak-flu-season’. These trends have been highlighted in recent clinical literature.^{1, 2, 3}

Grappling with the severe impact of Covid-19 in New York city, Columbia University has announced a clinical study to further examine how Zero-Cast can provide improved outcomes to patients treated for wrist fractures by specialists at New York Presbyterian Hospital. This clinical study will be led by a current user of Zero-Cast, Professor Melvin Rosenwasser, Professor of Surgery of the Hand in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Professor of Surgery at the Columbia University Medical Center.

“The Zero-Cast team are excited as we await results from this important comparative clinical study. We are particularly hopeful that the study will suggest a better option to the current treatment protocol for wrist-fractures. Common plaster-casting treatment has remained largely unchanged for more than 160 years since its first use,” comments Zero-Cast CEO Steve Hamilton.

Mr Hamilton says Zero-Cast is currently seeking further investment to help develop the market for its device and to bring similar design innovation to other injury treatments. Mr Hamilton says doctors have expressed strong interest and are particularly eager to undertake additional clinical research on remote-monitoring of treatment and telerehabilitation using Zero-Cast.

Zero-Cast has worked closely with the NZ government innovation agency, Callaghan Innovation, over the past six years. Callaghan has helped to fund its original proof-of-concept design through to market introduction. It is also supporting the ongoing development of a ‘SMART’ version of Zero-Cast for use in telerehabilitation.

About Zero-Cast – the company

Zero-Cast (the wholly owned trading subsidiary of Surgisplint Limited) was founded in 2013 by Dr Pranesh Kumar, surgeon-inventor and Mr Steve Hamilton, a medical-technology investor. Their head-office facility is based in Albany, Auckland, New Zealand, with a US-based company in Houston, Texas.

Surgisplint has obtained international regulatory approvals and holds over 15 patents and numerous trademarks for its Zero-Cast range of products that are manufactured and assembled to ISO-13485 standard. The Zero-Cast Wx (Wrist) device has also obtained HCPCS coding for reimbursement in the US. They are backed by a small group of individual investors & are currently seeking investment.

Website: www.zero-cast.com

Zero-Cast Wx is a new treatment for wrist fractures. It comes in sizes suitable for adult & paediatric patients.