Mobile External Coupling for Branch Vessel Sealing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current endoluminal stent-grafts face challenges in effectively directing blood flow from the main aorta into branch vessels, particularly at thoracic aneurysm locations near branch arteries, due to issues like blood leakage and misalignment, which complicates the sealing and deployment process.
Innovation Solution
A mobile external coupling with a shape memory wire deployment device is integrated into the stent-graft, allowing for a frustoconically shaped coupling that extends outward to align with branch vessels, ensuring proper positioning and sealing through stored energy release, thereby preventing leakage and ensuring unobstructed blood flow.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a stent-graft is deployed to seal against the aorta wall, then sealing is improved, but misalignment with branch arteries occurs causing blood leakage
Solution Approach 1:
The stent-graft is divided into multiple segments including a main body and an extendable coupling portion. The coupling portion can be selectively extended to reach branch arteries, allowing the main sealing body to remain in its optimal position while the coupling segment adjusts to achieve precise alignment with branch vessel ostia, thereby resolving the contradiction between maintaining seal integrity and achieving alignment precision.
Solution Approach 2:
The coupling portion of the stent-graft is designed to be dynamically extendable from a compressed delivery state to an expanded deployed state. This dynamic transformation allows the coupling to reach and align with branch arteries after the main graft body is securely positioned and sealed, enabling both reliable sealing and precise alignment without compromising either function.
2Measurement precision
If the stent-graft is extended to reach branch vessels, then alignment is improved, but blood leakage occurs due to misalignment
Solution Approach 1:
The coupling portion acts as an intermediary element between the main stent-graft body and the branch arteries. It provides a transitional interface that can be precisely positioned at the branch vessel ostium, creating a sealed connection that prevents blood leakage while maintaining alignment with the branch artery, thus resolving the harmful effect of leakage that occurs during alignment attempts.
3Ease of operation
If a fenestration is created in the stent-graft, then branch vessel access is improved, but blood leakage occurs between the graft and vessel wall
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of creating a simple fenestration (opening) in the graft wall, the invention extracts the problematic area by removing graft material at the fenestration site and replacing it with a dedicated coupling portion. This coupling is specifically designed to extend outward and seal against the branch vessel wall, taking out the leakage-prone fenestration and replacing it with a purpose-built sealing interface that maintains branch vessel access while preventing blood leakage.
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 enhances the alignment and sealing of the stent-graft with branch vessels, reducing blood leakage and ensuring consistent blood flow, even when the stent-graft is not perfectly aligned, thus improving the efficacy of endoluminal procedures for thoracic aneurysm treatment.
Implementation Method 1
The coupling deployment device is a shape memory wire that is coupled to one of the stents coupled to tubular body graft material. The coupling deployment device provides as outward force due to stored energy when the mobile external coupling is a released at a treatment site.
Data Source
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AI summary
An endovascular prosthesis (100) includes a tubular body and a mobile external coupling (120). The tubular body includes a graft material and stents (104) coupled thereto which forms a lumen therethrough. The mobile external coupling extends outwardly from the tubular body. The mobile external coupling includes a graft material and is generally frustoconically shaped. The mobile external coupling includes a base (124) coupled to the tubular body, a top (126) spaced from the tubular body, and a coupling lumen disposed between the base and the top, wherein the coupling lumen is in flow communication with the body lumen. A coupling deployment device (132) is coupled to the coupling graft material to provide an extension force to extend the mobile external coupling from a collapsed configuration against the tubular body to an extended position wherein the mobile external coupling extends from the tubular body.