Balloon catheter and electrification system

Abstract

A balloon catheter is provided with a balloon on the tip of a main shaft. The balloon catheter is provided with: protruding parts that are furnished on the outer surface of the balloon and protrude outward from the outer surface of the balloon at least when the balloon is expanded; and electrodes that are furnished on the leading edges of the protruding parts in the direction of protrusion and are capable of transmitting energy to living tissue. The leading edge electrodes can thereby be delivered near the desired site of treatment by thrusting the protruding parts into living tissue and, in this configuration, energy is transmitted to said treatment site.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD[0001]The present invention relates to a balloon catheter for being inserted into a body cavity and treating a desired living tissue therein, and an energizing (electrification) system incorporating such a balloon catheter.BACKGROUND ART[0002]There has been a finding that patients with intractable hypertension who find it difficult to improve their high blood pressure even by taking antihypertensive can expect their blood pressure to be lowered by severing or disrupting the sympathetic nerve around the renal artery to block neurotransmission.[0003]It has been proposed in the art to percutaneously sever the sympathetic nerve around the renal artery using an ablation catheter. For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2008-515544 (PCT) discloses an ablation catheter for severing the sympathetic nerve around the renal artery, the ablation catheter including a helical electrode disposed around an inflatable balloon for contacting and energizing the inner wall...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0011]If the protrusive member is provided as at least a pair of protrusive members, and the electrodes disposed on the pair of protrusive members serve as a set of bipolar electrodes, then the living body tissue to be energized can be energized more locally, so that energy transmission to other living body tissues is prevented more reliably.

[0012]The protrusive members may be provided in a plurality of arrays disposed along an axial direction of the balloon and at different circumferential phases of the balloon in the arrays. With this arrangement, the protrusive members are prevented from being concentrating circumferentially at a certain position along the direction in which the renal artery extends, and hence from cauterizing the blood vessel wall in an annular pattern at one location. In other words

Problems solved by technology

In other words, since energy is transmitted to other regions than the target issue to be cauterized, i.e., the sympathetic nerve in t

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