About 20,000 coronary bypass surgery procedures are performed annually in Japan, and more than 80% of these procedures are guided and controlled by the use of blood flow measurement and intraoperative ultrasound imaging technology from Medistim. This makes Japan the most developed country in the world in terms of adopting and routinely applying quality assessment and surgical guidance to improve CABG surgery.
Valid from 1st April 2016, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in Japan approved a reimbursement of YEN 25,000 [EUR 225] when blood flow of the graft is controlled, using either transit time flow measurement or high-resolution epicardial ultrasonography intraoperatively.
“This is a great milestone in Medistim’s history” says Kari E. Krogstad, CEO of Medistim ASA. “Achieving reimbursement for the use of our technology after almost two decades of developing routine use in Japan is a great encouragement and affirmation of the value that is put on the clinical value of the technology. Hopefully, this could lead to more countries acknowledging the value of reimbursing the quality assessment and guidance aspects of CABG and other vascular surgery. The reimbursement achieved in Japan is a result of the joint efforts of the industry and leading surgeons, in particular Professor Hirokuni Arai, who has contributed strongly to the clinical acceptance of the combined technology for ultrasonic surgical guidance and quality assessment during CABG surgery.”

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