![\"Hicura](\"\/ece\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/01\/hicura-1.jpg\")
With it, he hoped to reduce the pain and complication risks for women worldwide during childbirth.<\/p>\n
The project, uSINE, combines Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based image processing software and a needle-based drug injection system to enable clinicians to be guided by ultrasound images to administer spinal anaesthesia to the right location.<\/p>\n
Current methods for anaesthesia injections<\/strong><\/p>\n Currently, epidural injections offering pain relief to patients during childbirth are administered using palpation-based \u201cblind\u201d procedures or ultrasound scans, which have a first time needle insertion success rate of 40 per cent or 68 per cent respectively.<\/p>\n This increases the risk of complications for patients, which can include nerve injury and paralysis. Other drawbacks of the current methods are the inability to cater to obese patients and the need for anaesthetists to be aided by a radiologist and additional nurses for the ultrasound-guided procedures.<\/p>\n Clinical studies involving 100 patients conducted by the KK Women\u2019s and Children\u2019s Hospital (KKH) between 2016 and 2017 achieved a high level of accuracy of 92%.<\/p>\n uSINE\u2019s targeted approach reduces the risk of complications. Additionally, women experiencing excruciating birth pangs get more effective pain relief.<\/p>\n Seeing the potential for scalability and commercialisation of the technology, Dr Ma invited\u00a0NUS Graduate School for Integrative Sciences and Engineering<\/a>\u00a0PhD students Ms Ng Cailin and Mr Leng Yusong to form\u00a0HiCura Medical<\/a>.<\/p>\n The start-up was among the more than 90 applications seeking to join\u00a0the inaugural cohort of GRIP<\/a>, and was shortlisted along with 14 others to receive an initial tranche of $50,000 each in seed funding from NUS.<\/p>\n “GRIP gave us a lot of help, because all three of us are engineers. We didn\u2019t have any marketing or pitching experience, or anything of that sort. So we took the three-day GRIP workshop over three weekends, and it was a long three-month period where we had to think about how we\u2019re going to sell this, where our stakeholders are, where our customers are coming from, and what kind of business model we are going to take.”<\/em> \u2014 Ms Ng Cailin, PhD student, NUS Graduate School for Integrative Sciences and Engineering<\/p>\n \u201cGRIP gave us a lot of help, because all three of us are engineers. We didn\u2019t have any marketing or pitching experience, or anything of that sort,\u201d said Ms Ng.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we took the three-day GRIP workshop over three weekends, and it was a long three-month period where we had to think about how we\u2019re going to sell this, where our stakeholders are, where our customers are coming from, and what kind of business model we are going to take.\u201d<\/p>\n Under GRIP, the team was also matched with a dedicated mentor, Dr Kate Lazarenko, a digital health consultant and adjunct lecturer at the\u00a0NUS Institute of Systems Science<\/a>\u2019s\u00a0Smart Health Leadership Centre<\/a>. Ms Ng credits Dr Lazarenko as well as Dr Bipin Bhola Sewakram and Dr Christina Tong from the NUS Industry Liaison Office for dispensing invaluable advice and support that helped HiCura move forward.<\/p>\n Next steps<\/strong><\/p>\n Currently the start-up is raising capital as well as fine-tuning the software. It is also looking to set up its quality management system, as well as user interface and experience design (UI\/UX).<\/p>\n With further research and clinical studies, HiCura\u2019s AI technology could be expanded for other procedures that involve inserting a needle into the epidural space of the spine, such as spinal anaesthesia for hip replacement operations, lumbar punctures and drug delivery.<\/p>\n![\"Hicura](\"\/ece\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/01\/hicura-2.jpg\")