Annular Guide Element for Safer Intravascular Catheter Placement
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional intravascular catheter placement systems are challenging for less experienced practitioners due to difficult access in patients with small, tortuous, collapsed, or fragile arteries and veins, often resulting in accidental punctures and complex deployment mechanisms that obscure the needle and guide structure, increasing cost and complexity.
Innovation Solution
A guide element for intravascular access devices with a catheter body and a needle, featuring a working space between the needle and catheter, where a guide element with a distal end and annular elements is advanced to facilitate catheter placement, providing intuitive and straightforward deployment with reduced components and improved visibility.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional deployment mechanisms are used, then catheter placement can be achieved, but the mechanisms become complex and obscure the needle and guide structure
Solution Approach 1:
The patent removes the traditional complex deployment handle and its associated mechanisms entirely. The guide structure is designed to be self-deploying through simple manual manipulation of the catheter body, extracting the unnecessary complexity while maintaining the essential catheter placement function.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of using a complex handle mechanism to deploy the guide structure, the patent inverts the approach by allowing the guide structure to deploy automatically through simple manipulation of the catheter body itself, reversing the traditional deployment paradigm.
2Reliability
If complex handle movements are employed, then catheter deployment is achieved, but cost and complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent eliminates the complex deployment handle entirely, extracting the unnecessary mechanical complexity while retaining the essential catheter deployment function through simpler, more intuitive manual manipulation.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent adopts a disposable catheter system where the catheter body itself serves as the deployment mechanism, eliminating the need for expensive, complex reusable handles and reducing overall system cost.
3Reliability
If conventional catheter placement systems are used, then vascular access can be obtained, but accidental punctures occur in challenging vessels
Solution Approach 1:
The patent deploys a guide structure ahead of the catheter tip that preliminarily establishes the correct path through challenging vessels, allowing the catheter to follow the predetermined safe route and avoiding accidental punctures of adjacent structures.
Solution Approach 2:
The guide structure acts as an intermediary element between the operator and the challenging vasculature, mediating the interaction by providing tactile feedback and physical guidance to navigate tortuous or collapsed vessels safely.
4Ease of operation
If simplified deployment is implemented, then intuitive use is achieved, but visibility and control may be compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The patent incorporates radiopaque materials and visual indicators into the catheter and guide structure that change appearance under fluoroscopy, allowing operators to easily detect and track the position and status of internal components while maintaining simple deployment mechanics.
Data Source
AI summary
A guide element for an intravascular access device may include an intravascular access device having a needle inside of a catheter lumen and a working space between an exterior surface of the needle and an interior surface of the catheter, the working space configured to receive one or more tools therethrough, and a guide element having a distal end and a proximal end separated by one or more annular elements, the guide element configured to be distally advanced from the intravascular access device inside of a blood vessel, wherein the one or more annular elements is configured to control at least a distal end of the guide element.