Abstract

With obesity rates increasing rapidly, the Atlas table, a modular table overlay, was developed to address the unmet medical need of the inability of current interventional tables to support patients weighing more than 450 lbs. Current procedural tables have a posted weight limit of 500 lbs. In practice, this limit is 450 lbs due to the permanent installation of a 50 lb dye injector at the foot of the table. Instability is reported in patients in the range of 250–450 lbs, resulting in the need to modify how the table is placed over the base. Additional weight and mobility limitations exist due to the cantilever beam design of the existing table that allows movement of the C-arm fluoroscope to move around the entire table. A clinical device should bear all of the weight of an 800 lb patient, without failing during emergency chest compressions, which makes the weight capacity necessary 1200 lbs. This must be accomplished without obstructing the movement of the C-arm of the existing table or requiring a more than 2% increase in radiation. Our table overlay design features a lightweight, radiolucent tabletop and four modular height-adjusting legs that move with the existing table and do not require separate controls. The legs clamp to the radiolucent tabletop securely but not permanently so that they can be moved when needed, with buttons that swing out and cause the table to raise or lower by being trigger by contact from the existing table. The proposed design safely holds and lifts 1200 lbs.