Expandable Support Frame Catheter for Renal Nerve Ablation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for neuromodulation, particularly renal neuromodulation, face challenges in effectively delivering chemical agents to renal nerves while minimizing damage to the vessel wall and ensuring precise positioning within tortuous and variable renal arteries, which are often small and atherosclerotic, leading to limited efficacy and safety concerns.
Innovation Solution
A medical system featuring a neuromodulation catheter with a radially expandable support frame and fluid-delivery needles that expand to center the catheter within the renal vessel, distributing pressure and protecting the vessel wall, allowing for precise delivery of chemical agents to the renal nerves.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If a catheter is positioned in a tortuous and variable renal vessel, then the catheter can reach the target site for neuromodulation, but the catheter positioning becomes imprecise and unstable
Solution Approach 1:
The catheter is divided into a proximal shaft portion and a distal shaft portion that can be independently positioned. The distal portion includes expandable support frames that can be deployed independently to contact the vessel wall, allowing each segment to adapt to local vessel geometry while maintaining overall positioning precision.
Solution Approach 2:
The catheter incorporates radially expandable support frames that can transition from a compressed delivery configuration to an expanded treatment configuration. This dynamic transformation allows the catheter to adapt to vessel tortuosity during delivery, then stabilize precisely against the vessel wall during treatment.
2Productivity
If the catheter contacts the vessel wall to deliver chemical agents, then the chemical agent delivery is effective, but the vessel wall suffers damage
Solution Approach 1:
The catheter incorporates guide tubes that surround the fluid-delivery needles. These guide tubes concentrate and direct the chemical agent flow precisely at the target nerve tissue through the vessel wall, ensuring effective delivery while minimizing lateral dispersion and potential damage to surrounding vessel wall areas.
Solution Approach 2:
The guide tubes act as intermediary structures between the chemical agent source and the target tissue. They control and shape the flow of chemical agents, directing them precisely through the vessel wall to the nerves while preventing uncontrolled dispersion that could harm the vessel wall.
3Stability of the object's composition
If the catheter is expanded to center within the vessel, then the catheter positioning stability is improved, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The radially expandable support frames serve multiple functions: they provide structural support to center the catheter within the vessel, create a stable platform for needle deployment, and distribute mechanical stresses. This multi-functionality reduces the need for additional separate components, managing overall device complexity while achieving positioning stability.
4Reliability
If the catheter delivers chemical agents through needles, then the neuromodulation efficacy is improved, but the risk of vessel wall injury increases
Solution Approach 1:
The guide tubes concentrate the chemical agent flow through defined pathways, ensuring that the neurotoxic chemical is delivered precisely to the target nerve tissue through the vessel wall. This localized delivery maximizes neuromodulation efficacy at the target site while minimizing exposure and potential injury to non-target vessel wall areas.
Data Source
AI summary
In some examples, a medical system for delivering a chemical agent into a perivasculature of a patient includes a catheter (102) defining a central longitudinal axis; and a neuromodulation assembly at a distal portion of the catheter, wherein the neuromodulation assembly includes one or more fluid-delivery needles (120) configured to extend radially outward from the central longitudinal axis at a distal portion of the catheter; and a radially expandable support frame (124) positioned both proximal and distal to the one or more fluid-delivery needles, the radially expandable support frame configured to contact a vessel wall of a vessel (118) of a patient to approximately radially center the distal portion of the catheter within the vessel and to distribute an applied pressure between the neuromodulation assembly and the vessel wall.