Progressive-Flexibility Catheter Support Frame for Tortuous Vasculature
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing guide catheter designs face challenges in fabrication complexity and lack control over characteristics such as steerability, variable bending flexibility, and pushability, particularly when navigating tortuous coronary vasculature and non-compliant lesions.
Innovation Solution
A catheter tube design featuring a distal portion with zones of circumferentially distributed units, each with oriented cutout segments, a skeletal tubular frame, and an outer jacket, allowing for controlled flexibility and steerability through varying cutout patterns and materials like nitinol or stainless steel.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If different tube portions of different characteristics are joined together to create guide catheter extensions, then backup support and flexibility are improved, but fabrication complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The catheter tube is divided into multiple zones along its length, with each zone containing a specific pattern of circumferentially distributed cutouts. This segmentation allows different sections to have tailored flexibility characteristics while being manufactured as a single integrated component, resolving the contradiction between improved backup support and reduced fabrication complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
Different zones of the catheter tube have locally optimized cutout patterns that provide varying degrees of flexibility and structural support at different locations. The distal portion has cutouts optimized for navigation through tortuous vasculature, while proximal portions maintain greater structural integrity for backup support, eliminating the need to join multiple tube portions with different characteristics.
2Adaptability or versatility
If spiral cuts or interrupted spiral cuts are used to create varying flexibility along the catheter shaft, then flexibility control is improved, but manufacturing precision requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of using continuous spiral cuts that require high manufacturing precision, the patent segments the catheter shaft into discrete zones with circumferentially distributed cutouts. Each zone has a specific number and pattern of cutouts that can be precisely controlled during manufacturing, providing variable flexibility along the shaft while reducing the precision requirements compared to spiral cut methods.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transitions from one-dimensional spiral cuts along the catheter length to a two-dimensional pattern of circumferentially distributed cutouts arranged in discrete zones. This dimensional change allows for more controllable and manufacturable flexibility characteristics, as the cutout patterns can be defined by simple geometric parameters (number of cutouts per zone, radial distance from center) rather than complex spiral trajectories.
3Strength
If a solid tube is used for the catheter, then structural strength is improved, but navigation through tortuous vasculature becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The catheter tube implements local quality by distributing cutouts circumferentially around the tube at different radial distances from the center in different zones. This creates regions of varying flexibility along the catheter length, allowing the distal portion to bend and navigate tortuous vasculature while the proximal portion maintains greater structural strength for support and control.
Solution Approach 2:
The catheter tube can be constructed from composite materials or a single material with spatially varying properties. The cutout patterns effectively create a composite structure with regions of different mechanical properties, combining the flexibility needed for navigation with the strength required for structural support, eliminating the need to choose between solid tube strength and navigability.
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 design enhances ease of fabrication and provides controlled flexibility, steerability, and kink resistance, improving navigation through complex vasculature.
Implementation Method 1
a skeletal tubular frame, comprising a plurality units of at least one cutout segment that is oriented with a three-fold rotational symmetry around a centre of symmetry
Data Source
Figure 1A
Figure 1B
Figure 2A
AI summary
Cut-pattern designs creating a frame structure from a solid tube, which may be used as a portion of medical device, such as a catheter. The tube includes a plurality of units of cutout segments which are distributed in band around a circumference of the tube. A tube can have multiple different zones, each having units with varying cutout segments. The cutout segments can have varying cutout surface area allowing the flexibility of the tube to be modified at any point along the tube by altering the cutout surface area with zones having greater cutout surface areas as compared to another zone are more flexible. The tube can be incorporated into a catheter.