Instrument Guide for Endoscope Cryo Tube Positioning
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing medical delivery devices, such as endoscopes, face challenges in managing instruments like cryo-decompression tubes during procedures, as they often obstruct treatment areas and require repositioning, leading to untreated regions and potential complications from guidewires within the working channel.
Innovation Solution
The development of an instrument guide with a collapsible elongate braid and instrument braid system that provides a controlled external working channel, allowing instruments to extend alongside delivery devices, with features like clips and coatings for secure positioning and rotation, enabling better management and access to treatment sites without guidewires.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If instruments like cryo-decompression tubes are placed outside the working channel of the endoscope, then they can be introduced into the body, but they may obstruct treatment areas and create untreated regions
Solution Approach 1:
The instrument guide allows the cryo-decompression tube to be nested within the guide structure itself, which is positioned outside the endoscope working channel. This nesting approach enables the tube to be introduced without requiring placement directly on the body lumen surface, thereby preventing treatment area obstruction while maintaining accessibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The instrument guide acts as an intermediary structure between the endoscope working channel and the cryo-decompression tube. It provides a controlled pathway for the tube, allowing it to be positioned appropriately without directly obstructing the treatment area, thus mediating between instrument introduction requirements and treatment accessibility.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If the clinician removes and reorients the tube to treat masked areas, then treatment coverage is improved, but procedural time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The instrument guide is pre-configured to allow the cryo-decompression tube to be positioned in multiple orientations before the procedure begins. This preliminary preparation enables the clinician to address all treatment areas in a single continuous action without requiring tube removal and reorientation, thereby maintaining comprehensive treatment coverage while minimizing procedural time.
3Ease of operation
If guidewires are used to place tubes, then instrument positioning is facilitated, but additional objects in the working channel increase complexity
Solution Approach 1:
The instrument guide extracts the positioning function from the working channel environment by providing a dedicated guide structure that operates independently. This allows the cryo-decompression tube to be positioned using the guide as a reference rather than requiring guidewires within the working channel, thereby facilitating instrument positioning while reducing working channel complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
The present disclosure relates generally to the field of medical devices. In particular, the present disclosure relates to devices and methods to guide delivery devices and instruments. Exemplary instrument guides, including for endoscopes as delivery devices for cryogen delivery catheters and to guide cryogen decompression tubes as instruments, and methods for use of such instrument guides for use in body lumens at treatment sites, are disclosed.