Guidewireless Shock Wave Catheter for Tortuous Vessel Navigation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing guidewire-based shock wave catheters face difficulties in navigating through completely or almost completely occluded vessels, particularly in narrow and tortuous regions, risking vessel damage due to the use of stiff guidewires or radiofrequency energy.
Innovation Solution
Guidewireless shock wave catheters are designed with a core wire and flexible features such as coils or slits, enabling them to be steered through tortuous vasculature without a guidewire, allowing for shock wave generation and delivery in a narrow profile.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If guidewires are used to advance shock wave catheters, then positioning accuracy is improved, but device complexity and risk of vessel damage increase in narrow and tortuous regions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent removes the guidewire component from the shock wave catheter system, eliminating the need for a separate guidewire and its associated lumen. This extraction simplifies the overall device structure while maintaining the ability to navigate tortuous vasculature through the inherent flexibility of the catheter body itself.
Solution Approach 2:
The shock wave catheter is designed to perform multiple functions independently: navigation through tortuous vessels, shock wave generation, and shock wave delivery. By integrating these functions into a single device without requiring a separate guidewire, the patent reduces device complexity while maintaining positioning capability through the catheter's flexible structure.
2Ease of operation
If stiff guidewires are used to navigate occluded vessels, then navigation capability is improved, but vessel damage risk increases
Solution Approach 1:
The catheter incorporates a flexible body with coils or slits that allow it to bend and conform to tortuous vascular paths without requiring stiff guidewires. This flexibility enables safe navigation through narrow and tortuous regions while maintaining the ability to reach occluded lesions, eliminating the need for potentially damaging stiff guidewires.
3Ease of operation
If radiofrequency energy is used to open occlusions, then navigation through occluded vessels is improved, but vessel damage and procedure time increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent eliminates the radiofrequency energy component from the system, removing the need for thermal intervention to open occlusions. Instead, the flexible catheter design allows direct mechanical navigation through occluded vessels, significantly reducing procedure time by eliminating the thermal preparation step while avoiding associated vessel damage risks.
4Reliability
If guidewire-based catheters are used, then shock wave delivery is achieved, but profile size increases limiting access to narrow lumens
Solution Approach 1:
By removing the guidewire and its lumen from the catheter design, the patent achieves a lower overall profile that enables access to narrow body lumens. The shock wave delivery function is maintained through integrated electrodes and conductive fluid pathways within the simplified catheter structure, eliminating the space requirements of traditional guidewire-based systems.
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 guidewireless design reduces procedure time and risk of vessel damage by facilitating navigation through narrow and tortuous body lumens, achieving acute luminal gain in heavily occluded lesions.
Implementation Method 1
For electrohydraulic generation of acoustic shock waves, a conductive solution (e.g., saline) may be contained within an enclosure that surrounds electrodes or can be flushed through a tube that surrounds the electrodes. The calcified plaque modification is achieved by creating acoustic shock waves within the catheter by an electrical discharge across the electrodes. The energy from this electrical discharge enters the surrounding fluid faster than the speed of sound, generating an acoustic shock wave. In addition, the energy creates one or more rapidly expanding and collapsing vapor bubbles that generate secondary shock waves.
Implementation Method 2
For laser generation of acoustic shock waves, a laser pulse is transmitted into and absorbed by a fluid within the catheter. This absorption process rapidly heats and vaporizes the fluid, thereby generating the rapidly expanding and collapsing vapor bubble, as well as the acoustic shock waves that propagate outward and modify the calcified plaque.
Implementation Method 3
The shock waves propagate radially outward and modify calcified plaque within the blood vessels.
Data Source
AI summary
Various shock wave catheters and methods of use thereof that do not utilize a guidewire are described herein. The shock wave catheters include at least one shock wave emitter disposed within a distal portion of the shock wave catheter and configured to generate shock waves. The ends of conductive wires extending within an elongate tube can form the shock wave emitter(s). The shock wave emitter(s) can be surrounded by an enclosure fillable with a conductive fluid delivered by the lumen of the elongate tube. The elongate tube can include a coil or slits therein that enable flexibility of the shock wave catheter, which, in combination with the narrow profile of the shock wave catheters described herein, enable their use in navigating and treating small, tortuous vessels.