Expandable Catheter Electrode Array for Deep Tissue Access
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing electroporation devices face challenges in accessing deep-seated tissues within the body, such as the lung or brain, due to the need for large access areas and potential trauma to intervening tissues, limiting their effectiveness for treating deeper regions.
Innovation Solution
A catheter device with a deformable electrode assembly that can retract and extend to cover a larger area, allowing for the delivery of electrical treatments and therapeutic agents to internal tissues with minimal trauma, featuring a housing with expandable electrodes and needles that can be configured to expand beyond the catheter's cross-sectional area.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If needle-type electrodes are inserted via external plate-shaped elements to deliver electroporation treatment, then electrical treatment delivery is achieved, but trauma to intervening tissue increases and access area requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The electrode assembly is nested within the catheter housing in a retracted state, allowing the entire device to be inserted through a small access point. Upon deployment, the electrodes extend outward from the catheter tip, delivering treatment locally at the target site without requiring large external access areas or traversing through intervening tissue.
Solution Approach 2:
The electrode assembly transitions from a retracted configuration (during insertion) to an extended configuration (during treatment). This dynamic transformation allows the device to minimize trauma during access while maximizing treatment capability at the target site, resolving the contradiction between reliable treatment delivery and tissue trauma.
2Area of stationary object
If electrode assembly is extended to cover larger treatment area, then treatment effectiveness improves, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The electrode assembly is divided into multiple individual electrode elements that can be independently positioned around the catheter periphery. This segmentation allows the treatment area to be expanded by simply adding more electrode elements in a modular fashion, rather than designing a single complex electrode structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The electrode assembly utilizes the circumferential dimension around the catheter tip to expand the treatment area. Instead of extending electrodes linearly in one direction, the electrodes are arranged radially around the catheter perimeter, effectively using the third dimension (circumference) to increase treatment coverage without proportionally increasing device complexity.
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
Enables efficient delivery of electrical treatments and therapeutic agents to internal tissues with reduced trauma, allowing for enhanced permeability of cell membranes and targeted tissue ablation or stimulation, improving treatment accessibility for deep-seated tissues.
Implementation Method 1
A catheter device with a deformable electrode assembly that can retract and extend to cover a larger area
Implementation Method 2
Electroporation is a known method used to deliver drugs and genetic material to various biologic tissues, where the uptake of these substances into tissue cells is enhanced through the application of electric pulses of specific amplitude
Implementation Method 3
In IRE, the amplitude of electric pulses is increased beyond the levels used in ECT and EGT, which creates a permanent permeabilization of the cell membranes in a target tissue area with the purpose of promoting cell death through cell leakage
Data Source
AI summary
Catheter devices can include an elongate housing extending along a major axis, the elongate housing comprising a first end an opening. The catheter devices can also include an electrode assembly disposed in the elongate housing and including deformable electrodes with respective electrode distal ends, where the electrode distal ends each consist of respective member portions and respective tip portions. The electrode assembly is slidably movable within the housing along the major axis to allow the electrode distal end portions to transition between a first retracted position and a second extended position. The catheter device is configured such that an average distance between the tip portions in the second position is configured to be greater than an average distance between the tip portions in the first position the tip portions are positioned substantially in a same plane when the electrode assembly is in the second position.