Retractable-Layer Guide Wire for Mitral Valve Delivery Support
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Solution Overview
Problem
Delivering prosthetic heart valves through tortuous vasculature and securing them to intralumenal tissue in an atraumatic manner poses challenges, particularly in guiding delivery apparatuses to the mitral valve, which requires a guide wire that can navigate complex heart geometry and structure.
Innovation Solution
A guide wire apparatus with a core body, outer layer, and intermediate layer, allowing for controlled flexibility and stiffness adjustments through retractable components, enabling navigation through the heart's chambers and secure placement of prosthetic valves.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a guide wire is designed to navigate tortuous vasculature and complex heart geometry, then its flexibility is improved, but its ability to provide stable support and precise positioning deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The guide wire is divided into multiple segments with different stiffness characteristics: a distal portion with higher flexibility for navigating tortuous vasculature, and a proximal portion with higher stiffness for providing stable support. This segmentation allows each portion to perform its specific function optimally without compromising the other.
Solution Approach 2:
Different portions of the guide wire are assigned different mechanical properties tailored to their specific functional requirements. The distal portion has locally optimized flexibility for navigation, while the proximal portion has locally optimized stiffness for support, creating a non-uniform structure that addresses both contradictory requirements simultaneously.
2Reliability
If a guide wire is made stiffer to provide stable support for delivery apparatus, then its support capability is improved, but its ability to navigate tortuous vasculature deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The guide wire structure is segmented into distinct regions where the proximal portion provides stiffness for support and the distal portion provides flexibility for navigation. This spatial segmentation resolves the contradiction by assigning opposite mechanical properties to different locations along the wire.
Solution Approach 2:
The guide wire exhibits non-uniform mechanical properties along its length, with locally optimized stiffness in the proximal region for stable support and locally optimized flexibility in the distal region for navigating tortuous vasculature, allowing both functions to coexist.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If a delivery apparatus is designed for percutaneous delivery, then the invasiveness is reduced, but the complexity of delivering through tortuous vasculature increases
Solution Approach 1:
The guide wire incorporates variable flexibility along its length, allowing it to dynamically adapt to the tortuous geometry of the vasculature. The flexible distal portion can bend and conform to complex pathways while the stiffer proximal portion maintains structural integrity, enabling percutaneous delivery without excessive device complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
Guide wire apparatuses and methods. Guide wires may be utilized for guiding a delivery apparatus, for example a transcatheter mitral valve delivery apparatus to replace a native mitral valve. A guide wire may include a core body having a length, and an outer layer having a length and extending around the core body and along the length of the core body. A guide wire may include an intermediate layer positioned between the core body and the outer layer and configured to be retracted relative to the core body and the outer layer along the length of the core body and the length of the outer layer.