We are dedicated to making minimally invasive procedures easier and safer

The founders, Dr. Peter Sunenshine and Dr. Kevin Hirsch, practice at the Banner University Medical Center in the Phoenix area. They are experts in image guided, minimally invasive procedures.  While performing percutaneous biopsies of the liver and kidneys, the doctors saw a need to significantly limit the amount of bleeding.  Hemorrhage is the most serious complication of a percutaneous biopsy and, at times, it can be life threatening.  No effective non invasive techniques exist to stop post biopsy hemorrhage.  Thus, those patients that have severe post biopsy hemorrhage require transfusions as well as additional procedures or surgeries to control the hemorrhage.  Although these secondary procedures can control the hemorrhage, they also cause damage to the affected organ.  

After years of witnessing these severe complications, they sought a better solution.  They realized that just as it is common practice to achieve hemostasis using a cautery or electrosurgery during an open surgical procedure, there could be a way to achieve the same result while performing minimally invasive biopsies.  However, there has never been an electrosurgery/cautery device that could be used through a guide needle during minimally invasive percutaneous biopsies.  Thus, they conceived of a handheld, portable, Electrosurgery device that could achieve hemostasis through a small guide needle at the time of the biopsy.  This device could be used during every biopsy to ensure hemostasis is achieved with no significant injury to the treated biopsy tract

When a percutaneous biopsy is performed, there are no reliable techniques to treat significant internal bleeding.  Typically, the patient has to undergo a second, more invasive procedure, to stop the internal bleeding.  For example, internal bleeding from a renal biopsy is not an infrequent occurrence.  If the hemorrhage is arterial, and significant, the patient will typically require a blood transfusion and undergo a renal arteriogram and embolization emergently, in order to stop the bleeding and stabilize the patient.  If this is unsuccessful, the patient may require open surgery.  These situations can be life threatening.

First Pass has developed the only bipolar electrosurgery device that is handheld, battery operated, and designed to easily fit inside the lumen of a biopsy guide needle under U.S. Patent No. US9901393B2.  It is designed to be affordable, reliable, and disposable, but it can produce a current for more than 3 minutes, typically 10 times more than required for any electrosurgery procedure to achieve hemostasis.  Because it uses bipolar electrosurgery, the current is applied only at the tip of the device and only affects 2mm to 3mm of the tissue immediately surrounding the device.  Thus, hemostasis is easily achieved and no significant damage occurs to the treated tissue.  The product allows the user to treat any number of locations within the subject (human or animal) in any setting, such as the hospital, outpatient office, or in the field.