Surgical retractor and stabilizing device and method for use

Abstract

An adjustable surgical retractor and its use for improving a surgeon's ability to perform closed-chest video-assisted exploratory, diagnostic or surgical procedures on a patient. The surgical retractor has opposable blades which can be inserted into a surgical incision in a patient undergoing a surgical procedure then spread apart to form an elongated access opening through which a instrument may be inserted to perform exploratory, diagnostic or surgical procedures. The blades used in the surgical retractor may be flexible or rigid and are attachable to the retractor. The blades are of a width, depth and thickness to provide an access to an internal cavity or subcutaneous region to allow greater degrees of freedom to the surgeon in inserting instruments into the access opening. The use of the surgical retractor forms a substantially ovoid channel, through which a medical instrument can be inserted to perform surgical or other operations.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This is a continuation of application Ser. No. 10 / 371,756 filed Feb. 21, 2003, which is a continuation of application Ser. No. 09 / 672,110 filed Sep. 27, 2000, which is a continuation of application Ser. No. 09 / 171,206 filed Aug. 10, 1999, which is a National Stage application of international application number PCT / US97 / 06112 filed Apr. 10, 1997, which claimed the benefit of provisional patent application U.S. 60 / 014,922 filed Apr. 10, 1996 in the name of inventors Arthur Bertolero, Raymond Bertolero and Jerome Riebman. This application is related to applications PCT / US97 / 06533, PCT / US97 / 05910, PCT / US97 / 06070 and U.S. Utility Ser. No. 08 / 838,774, which were concurrently or almost concurrently filed with PCT / US97 / 06112, which is one of the application in the priority chain listed above. Each of the above-identified patent applications is incorporated by reference.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] This invention relates to an adjustable surgi...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

This technique causes significant physical trauma to the patient and can require one week of hospital recovery time and up to eight weeks of convalescence.

This can be very expensive in terms of hospital costs and disability, to say nothing of the pain to the patient.

While this procedure has the advantage of being less invasive or traumatic than performing a media, sternotomy, there are numerous disadvantages to using trocars to establish the entry ports for the instruments and viewscope.

In addition, because of the limited movement, the surgeon often has to force the instrument into an angle that moves the trocar and further damages the surrounding tissue and nerves.

The need to force the instrument causes the surgeon to lose sensitivity and tactile feedback, thus making the surgery more difficult.

Major disadvantages of these systems include their limited positioning, complexity, and lack of reusability.

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