BackgroundHealthcare-focused hackathons are 48-hour platforms intended to accelerate novel medical technology. However, debate exists about how much they contribute to medical technology innovation. The Consortium for Affordable Medical Technologies (CAMTech) has developed a three-pronged model to maximise their effectiveness. To gauge the success of this model, we examined follow-up outcomes.MethodsOutcomes of 12 hackathons from 2012 to 2015 in India, Uganda and the USA were measured using emailed surveys. To minimise response bias, non-responding teams were coded as having made no progress.Results331 individuals provided information on 196 of 356 projects (55.1% response rate), with no difference in responses from teams participating in different countries (Cramer's V=0.09, p=0.17). 30.3% of projects had made progress after a mean of 12.2 months. 88 (24.7%) teams had initiated pilot testing, with 42 (11.8%) piloting with care providers and 24 (6.7%) with patients. Overall, 97 teams (8.1 per hackathon) drafted business plans, 22 (1.8 per hackathon) had filed patents on their innovations and 15 (1.3 per hackathon) had formed new companies. Teams raised US$64.08 million in funding (average US$5.34 million per hackathon; median award size of $1800). In addition, 108 teams (30.3%) reported at least one member working on additional technologies with people they met at a hackathon. Individual confidence to address medical technology challenges was significantly increased after attending (t(1282)=192.77, p 0.001).ConclusionCAMTech healthcare hackathons lead to consistent output with respect to medical technology innovation, including clinical trials, business plan development, securing investment capital/funding and new company formation.

A 69-year-old woman with a history of Hodgkin's lymphoma at age 17 was admitted to our hospital with 3 weeks of progressive dyspnoea on exertion. Her medical history and physical exam were concerning for superior vena cava (SVC) syndrome and while her workup did indeed reveal such, its aetiology was not due to a compressive mass associated with malignancy. Rather, she developed chronic thromboses in the setting of radiation-induced venous fibrosis. This case report details her case and explains the key clinical concerns, pathophysiology and incidence of radiation-induced SVC syndrome.

Annular rupture is a rare catastrophic event during transcatheter aortic valve replacement, often life threatening and requiring emergent surgical repair. We describe, herein, a case of contained annular rupture successfully managed percutaneously with coiling and polymer injection. This is a novel technique to manage this complication. ( Level of Difficulty: Advanced. )

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