Pre-attached Stent Delivery System for Minimizing Contamination
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current percutaneous heart valve replacement techniques require significant clinician handling, leading to potential damage, misassembly, and contamination risks, and lack a simplified method for attaching stents to delivery systems.
Innovation Solution
A cartridge-based system that pre-attaches a stent to a delivery system, allowing for quick and reliable attachment, reducing handling and minimizing the risk of contamination, with features for compressible and expandable stents that can be deployed at the desired location.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional percutaneous heart valve replacement techniques are used, then the valve can be implanted percutaneously, but significant clinician handling is required leading to potential damage, misassembly, and contamination risks
Solution Approach 1:
The stent is pre-assembled and pre-attached to the delivery system in a controlled manufacturing environment before sterilization. This preliminary assembly eliminates the need for clinician handling of stent components during the procedure, preventing damage and contamination while ensuring proper assembly.
Solution Approach 2:
The stent and delivery system are merged into a single integrated assembly through pre-attachment. This combination reduces the number of separate components that require handling and assembly during the procedure, thereby reducing contamination risks and operational complexity.
2Loss of time
If the stent is pre-attached to the delivery system, then handling time is reduced and contamination risk is minimized, but the attachment mechanism must be highly reliable and precise
Solution Approach 1:
The attachment of the stent to the delivery system is performed in advance during manufacturing, allowing for precise assembly under controlled conditions rather than during the time-sensitive procedural environment.
Solution Approach 2:
The delivery system is designed with self-aligning or self-locking attachment features that ensure precise connection of the stent without requiring complex manual alignment procedures, maintaining manufacturing precision while simplifying the attachment process.
3Length of moving object
If the stent is compressed for delivery through the catheter, then percutaneous delivery is enabled, but the stent structure must maintain integrity during compression and expansion
Solution Approach 1:
The stent is designed with dynamic structural characteristics that allow it to transition between compressed and expanded states. The structure incorporates flexible yet strong materials and geometric configurations that maintain integrity during deformation while enabling the necessary size reduction for catheter delivery.
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 cartridge system simplifies the attachment process, reduces handling time, enhances reliability and consistency, and minimizes the risk of complications during implantation by allowing for controlled deployment and orientation of the stent within the body.
Implementation Method 1
The stent structure (18) is compressible to a relatively small diameter for percutaneous delivery to the heart of the patient, and then is expandable either via removal of external compressive forces
Implementation Method 2
The stent structure (18) is compressible to a relatively small diameter for percutaneous delivery to the heart of the patient, and then is expandable either via removal of external compressive forces (e.g., self-expanding stents)
Data Source
AI summary
A delivery system for delivery of an implantable stented device to a body lumen, the device having a plurality of structures at its proximal end, wherein the delivery system comprises a first body portion removably attached to a second body portion and wherein the second body portion includes a plurality of attachment components at its distal end for attachment to the plurality of structures at the proximal end of the device.