Arbor Plate Pre-Bending for Consistent Surgical Staple Formation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing surgical staplers face challenges in accommodating a wide range of tissue thicknesses, leading to issues such as loosely formed staples for thin tissues or excessive compressive force causing necrosis and bleeding for thick tissues, and poor staple formation due to high firing loads and misalignment with staple forming pockets.
Innovation Solution
The use of arbors and pre-bending staple tips to facilitate staple formation across varying tissue thicknesses, ensuring proper staple curling and alignment, regardless of tissue conditions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If traditional staple forming methods using anvil pockets are used, then staple formation works for standard tissue thicknesses, but staple formation quality deteriorates for thin tissues (loosely formed staples) or thick tissues (excessive compressive force causing necrosis and bleeding)
Solution Approach 1:
The arbor plate pre-bends staple tips during manufacturing before the stapling procedure. This preliminary action ensures that staples are pre-formed to the correct geometry, eliminating the need for precise alignment with anvil pockets during surgery and preventing both loose formation in thin tissues and excessive compression in thick tissues.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention extracts the staple forming function from the anvil assembly and integrates it into the staple cartridge via the arbor plate. This separation allows the staple forming geometry to be fixed during manufacturing while the anvil can be simplified, improving adaptability across different tissue thicknesses.
2Force
If high firing loads are used to drive staples through thick tissue, then staples can penetrate the tissue, but staple formation quality deteriorates due to misalignment with staple forming pockets and excessive force
Solution Approach 1:
The arbor plate pre-bends staple tips during manufacturing, so that when staples are fired, they are already positioned correctly for formation. This eliminates the need for high firing loads to achieve proper alignment, reducing both misalignment issues and excessive force application to the tissue.
3Device complexity
If staple tips are not pre-bended, then the staple cartridge structure remains simple, but staple formation consistency deteriorates across varying tissue thicknesses
Solution Approach 1:
The arbor plate is integrated into the staple cartridge and pre-bends staple tips during manufacturing. This adds some complexity to the cartridge structure but ensures consistent staple formation across all tissue thicknesses, eliminating the need for complex alignment mechanisms during surgery.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Enhances staple formation consistency and reduces the risk of tissue damage by adapting to different tissue thicknesses, improving staple retention and reducing complications like necrosis and bleeding.
Implementation Method 1
Each arbor surface is configured to pre-bend a corresponding tip of a respective staple
Data Source
AI summary
A method of forming staples between opposing jaws of a stapling device, the method including positioning a set of guide surfaces over each of a plurality of staples loaded in openings of a staple cartridge of a first jaw of the opposing jaws of the stapling device, where each staple includes a crown with staple legs extending therefrom, and where ends of the staple legs opposite the crown exit through the openings. The method further including bending the ends of the staple legs with the guide surfaces, where the guide surfaces are further configured to cause the staple legs to continue bending as the staples exit the openings.