Universitätsmedizin Frankfurt Is First to Use Abbott's AI-Based Ultreon 3.0 for Heart Catheter Procedures

Universitätsmedizin Frankfurt became the world's first clinical site to use Abbott's Ultreon 3.0 software platform in routine practice on 30 March 2026, shortly after the platform received its CE mark, according to an April 2026 report based on the hospital's announcement. Ultreon 3.0 is used to plan and carry out percutaneous coronary interventions, in which narrowed heart arteries are widened with stents. "The use of Ultreon 3.0 is a significant step for our patient care. With this technology we can diagnose and treat vascular diseases of the heart even more precisely - in real time and without additional invasive measurements," said Prof. David M. Leistner, director of cardiology at the University Heart and Vascular Center (translated from German). Catheter procedures are usually guided by angiography, an X-ray method with contrast agent that shows little about plaque composition or how much a narrowing actually limits blood flow. International studies show intravascular imaging changes the treatment strategy in up to 50% of cases and is linked to better long-term results, and European guidelines recommend it for complex procedures at the highest evidence level, yet it is rarely used because of time pressure and the effort of interpreting the images. The platform combines optical coherence tomography (OCT), which uses infrared light to produce high-resolution cross-sectional images of the vessel wall, with FFR-OCT, a real-time physiological analysis that derives blood flow across a narrowing directly from the OCT image data without additional invasive measurement. Imaging a full coronary artery takes about one second, and the team has a basis for decisions within seconds. The workflow needs very little contrast agent, which matters for patients with impaired kidney function. Integrated AI automatically detects relevant structures such as calcification and lipid deposits and supports decisions on stent length, position and expansion, including in complex cases such as bifurcations or long lesions. The first procedure was performed by the team of PD Dr. Marco Ochs and Prof. Leistner, about 40 years after the hospital performed the world's second coronary intervention.