Reconfigurable Pronged Bypass Device for Glaucoma Drainage
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional glaucoma surgeries, including trabeculectomy and aqueous shunts, face complications such as bleb failure, scarring, and increased risk of infection, while laser surgery has reduced effectiveness and inflammation issues, necessitating a more effective and safer minimally invasive approach to manage intraocular pressure.
Innovation Solution
A minimally invasive glaucoma surgery (MIGS) technique involving a bypass device with a tubular structure and pronged features that are reconfigurable to form tent structures, allowing for the creation of open channels through the trabecular meshwork to facilitate aqueous humor drainage into Schlemm's canal, aided by a guide wire and visualization agents for precise placement and tissue engagement.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional trabeculectomy or aqueous shunt surgery is performed to reduce intraocular pressure, then aqueous humor drainage is improved, but the risk of infection and bleb failure increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an aqueous humor flow redirector as an intermediary device that redirects aqueous humor flow away from the surgical site without requiring a bleb formation. The redirector acts as a mediator between the anterior chamber and the drainage system, allowing aqueous humor to bypass the blocked trabecular meshwork while avoiding the creation of a vulnerable subconjunctival reservoir that could become infected
2Reliability
If laser surgery is performed to treat glaucoma, then intraocular pressure is reduced, but effectiveness decreases and inflammation occurs
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the thermal/mechanical laser action with a mechanical device-based solution. Instead of using laser energy to create channels or modify tissue, the invention uses a physically implanted aqueous humor flow redirector that mechanically alters fluid flow patterns, avoiding the inflammatory response and tissue damage associated with laser surgery while maintaining effective intraocular pressure control
3Ease of operation
If minimally invasive approach is used to reduce surgical trauma, then recovery is faster, but the ability to create effective drainage pathways is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the fundamental parameter of how drainage is achieved - instead of creating new physical channels through extensive tissue manipulation, the device alters the flow dynamics parameters by redirecting aqueous humor along a different path. This approach maintains the minimally invasive nature of the procedure while ensuring effective drainage through hemodynamic principles rather than anatomical restructuring
Data Source
AI summary
A bypass device can be implanted into a body tissue to provide fluid channels through the body tissue. The bypass device includes an open tubular base, and a plurality of pronged features attached to the open tubular base, the pronged features being reconfigurable from a first position to a second position. In the first position the pronged features extend longitudinally along a plane of the open tubular base, and the pronged features are reconfigurable to the second position by flexing the pronged features relative to the tubular base, such that in the second position the pronged features are configured for insertion through the body tissue. The pronged features may be configured as opposing arrow-shaped tangs that are flexed to form tent structures that are insertable through the body tissue. The bypass device may be used in a minimally invasive glaucoma surgery (MIGS) for treating glaucoma to define fluid flow channels that permit aqueous humor to pass through the trabecular meshwork and into Schlemm's canal.