Variable Diameter Guide Catheter for Urethral Placement
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Solution Overview
Problem
Urethral catheterization can be challenging due to false passages, urethral strictures, prostate enlargement, or prior surgery, often requiring additional equipment and invasive procedures like cystoscopy for successful indwelling catheter placement.
Innovation Solution
A variable diameter, semi-flexible cylinder with a guide wire lumen and confirmation lumen for improved guidance of indwelling catheter placement, featuring a smooth, hydrophilic, and low-friction inner surface to facilitate easy guide wire passage and reduce resistance, allowing for precise placement without invasive procedures.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional catheterization methods are used, then the procedure can be performed with standard equipment, but successful placement is difficult due to false passages, strictures, and prostate enlargement
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a guide catheter as an intermediary device that facilitates the passage of the indwelling catheter through difficult urethral pathways. The guide catheter with its flexible, tapered distal end acts as a mediator that can navigate past obstructions (false passages, strictures, prostate enlargement) and provide a stable track for the indwelling catheter to follow, thereby improving placement success without requiring invasive cystoscopy
Solution Approach 2:
The guide catheter employs parameter changes in its design: the distal end has a smaller diameter and is more flexible compared to the proximal end, allowing it to navigate tortuous and constricted urethral pathways. The gradual tapering from proximal to distal end enables the catheter to conform to anatomical variations and pass through strictures while maintaining structural integrity for effective guidance
2Measurement precision
If invasive cystoscopy is used to ensure successful catheter placement, then placement accuracy improves, but patient risk and healthcare costs increase
Solution Approach 1:
The guide catheter serves as a non-invasive intermediary that provides sufficient guidance for accurate catheter placement without requiring the invasive intervention of cystoscopy. By establishing a stable tracking path through the urethra and into the bladder, the guide catheter enables accurate indwelling catheter placement while avoiding the harms associated with cystoscopic procedures
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the mechanical/optical system of cystoscopy with a purely mechanical guide catheter system that uses flexible deformation and tapered geometry to achieve guidance. This substitution eliminates the need for invasive visual inspection while maintaining placement accuracy through the guide catheter's ability to navigate and stabilize the passage
3Ease of operation
If guide wires and dilators are used to create and expand a passage, then the pathway is established, but insertion problems persist during final catheter placement
Solution Approach 1:
The guide catheter acts as an intermediary between the dilator and the indwelling catheter. While dilators create the initial passage, the guide catheter maintains and refines this pathway, providing continuous guidance throughout the insertion process. This intermediate guidance structure ensures that the indwelling catheter follows the correct path from urethra through bladder, eliminating insertion problems that persist after dilator removal
Solution Approach 2:
The guide catheter is inserted and positioned in place before the indwelling catheter insertion is attempted. This preliminary placement establishes a stable, pre-formed pathway that remains in position during the subsequent catheter insertion, providing ongoing guidance rather than relying solely on the temporary pathway created by dilators
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
The solution enables successful indwelling catheter placement without invasive cystoscopy, reducing patient risk and healthcare costs by simplifying the procedure and expediting recovery.
Implementation Method 1
a smooth, hydrophilic, and low-friction inner surface to facilitate easy guide wire passage and reduce resistance
Data Source
AI summary
A urological device, that provides for the guided placement of the distal end of an indwelling catheter into a patient's bladder, includes: (a) a cylinder whose proximal end has a larger diameter than its distal end, (b) a confirmation lumen in the cylinder that is configured to allow for drainage of urine from a patient's bladder to confirm the necessary placement of the device's distal end in a patient's bladder, (c) a guide wire lumen in the cylinder that extends between its ends, (d) a guide wire, and (e) wherein the guide wire lumen is configured to first allow for the passage of the guide wire's distal end through the guide wire lumen and into the patient's bladder and then the withdrawal of the cylinder from the patient's urethra while leaving behind the guide wire's distal end in the patient's urethra for use in the insertion of an indwelling catheter.