Dynamic Annuloplasty Ring Sizer for Minimally Invasive Heart Valve Repair
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for sizing heart valve annuloplasty rings are imprecise, time-consuming, and cluttered, especially in minimally invasive surgical procedures, requiring multiple static sizers and trial-and-error techniques.
Innovation Solution
A dynamic, adjustable annuloplasty ring sizer that can be collapsed and expanded through a range of sizes, allowing a single device to determine the appropriate prosthetic ring size by manipulating a handle, reducing the need for multiple sizers and facilitating minimally invasive procedures.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If multiple static sizers are used for annuloplasty ring sizing, then measurement precision is improved, but device complexity and surgical time increase
Solution Approach 1:
A single sizer device is designed to perform multiple sizing functions by adjusting its configuration. The sizer can be modified to represent different annuloplasty ring sizes, eliminating the need for multiple separate sizers while maintaining measurement precision across the full range of available ring sizes.
Solution Approach 2:
The sizer transitions from a static, fixed-size tool to a dynamic, adjustable device. By incorporating mechanisms that allow the sizer to change its dimensions or configuration, a single device can assume multiple size representations, thereby resolving the contradiction between using multiple sizers for precision and the complexity of managing numerous devices.
2Measurement precision
If multiple static sizers are used for annuloplasty ring sizing, then measurement precision is improved, but loss of time increases due to trial-and-error techniques
Solution Approach 1:
The dynamic sizer allows the surgeon to adjust the device to different sizes during the procedure, enabling rapid evaluation of multiple ring size options without removing and replacing separate static sizers. This significantly reduces the time required for the trial-and-error sizing process while maintaining measurement accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The sizer is designed with pre-configured representations of different annuloplasty ring sizes, allowing the surgeon to evaluate multiple size options in advance during the sizing process itself, before final implantation. This preliminary evaluation of various sizes on a single device accelerates the decision-making process.
3Measurement precision
If multiple sizers are used in minimally invasive procedures, then measurement precision is improved, but ease of operation deteriorates due to surgical field clutter
Solution Approach 1:
By consolidating multiple sizing functions into a single multi-functional device, the surgical field remains uncluttered. The universal sizer can represent different ring sizes without requiring multiple separate devices to be introduced through minimally invasive access points, thereby maintaining ease of operation and clear surgical field visibility.
Data Source
AI summary
A dynamic, adjustable annuloplasty ring sizer can include an adjustable ring replica, which can be adjusted through a range of sizes corresponding to available prosthetic annuloplasty repair ring sizes. Actuation of an adjustment trigger on a handle portion of the ring sizer can displace tension wires that extend through a malleable shaft and through a plurality of articulating segments that form the ring replica. Displacement of the tension wires causes flexion of the joints between adjacent articulating segments, thereby reducing the overall size of the ring replica. Releasing the tension wires can allow an elastic extension wire to act on the ring replica, enlarging the ring replica to its maximum, at-rest size. In this manner, the appropriate size of annuloplasty ring prosthesis can be determined with a single device, without requiring a plurality of static ring sizers that require individual insertion and placement for the conventional trial-and-error sizing methods.