Rotating Cutting Element With Varying Opening Widths
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing medical instruments for cutting tissue in minimally invasive surgery are inefficient in detaching larger tissue parts, as they require multiple cuts leading to fraying and incomplete detachment due to uniform opening sizes, which restricts the size of tissue that can be effectively severed.
Innovation Solution
A medical instrument with a tubular shaft and rotatable inner cutting element featuring openings of varying widths, allowing for different tissue sizes to be suctioned and cut during a single revolution, preventing clogging and ensuring continuous suction and efficient tissue detachment.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If uniform width openings are used in the cutting element, then the structure is simple and easy to manufacture, but only tissue of specific size can be effectively detached and multiple cuts are needed for larger tissue parts
Solution Approach 1:
The cutting element features openings with different widths at different locations around its circumference. Specifically, at least one opening has a greater width than others, allowing the instrument to accommodate and cut tissue parts of varying sizes. This local variation in opening dimensions enables a single cut to effectively detach larger tissue parts that would otherwise require multiple cuts with uniform openings.
2Reliability
If multiple cuts are made to detach large tissue parts, then complete detachment can be achieved, but tissue fraying occurs and cutting time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The invention changes the geometric parameter of the openings in the cutting element by providing at least one opening with a greater width than the others. This parameter variation allows the cutting element to accommodate larger tissue parts in a single cut, thereby reducing the number of cuts required, minimizing tissue fraying, and decreasing overall cutting time while maintaining complete detachment.
3Reliability
If multiple cuts are performed on large tissue parts, then detachment can be achieved, but tissue fraying and shreds are left behind
Solution Approach 1:
By providing openings of different widths in the cutting element, the instrument can accommodate larger tissue parts in a single cutting action. This eliminates the need for multiple cuts that cause tissue fraying and leave behind shreds. The varied opening dimensions ensure that the tissue is cleanly severed without excessive manipulation or repeated cutting.
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 instrument achieves improved cutting performance by enabling the efficient detachment of various tissue sizes without clogging, ensuring continuous suction and higher efficiency in tissue removal.
Implementation Method 1
The suction effect of the suction source reaches through the inner hollow space of the shaft as far as the window, in order to suck the tissue to be detached through the window and into the shaft
Data Source
AI summary
A medical instrument for cutting tissue having a tubular outer shaft which, in the area of its distal end, has at least one window with at least one blade, and further comprises a tubular inner shaft which is rotatable about a longitudinal axis, is received in the outer shaft and has, at its distal end, a cutting element which is arranged in the area of the at least one window of the outer shaft and is provided with several circumferentially arranged openings, each of the openings of the cutting element having at least one blade which, when the cutting element is moved in rotation, cooperates in a cutting action with the at least one blade of the outer shaft. It is proposed that at least some of the openings of the cutting element should have different widths, seen in a circumferential direction.