Segmented Planar Catheter End Effector for Tissue Contact
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current cardiac mapping catheters face challenges in achieving high mapping resolution, maintaining electrode contact with irregular tissue surfaces, and ensuring atraumatic advancement due to their stiffness, which limits their ability to conform to the anatomy and collect data efficiently.
Innovation Solution
A multilayered end effector design for catheters, comprising a flexible circuit, a framework, and non-conductive flexible layers, along with a location sensing coil layer, allows for improved flexibility and contact with various tissue surfaces while maintaining structural integrity, enabling better mapping and ablation procedures.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Strength
If stiff internal structural members are used to maintain predetermined configuration, then structural integrity is improved, but ease of operation deteriorates as electrodes cannot contact tissue
Solution Approach 1:
The catheter structure is divided into multiple segments including a collapsible body with expandable end effector. The end effector can transition from a compressed delivery configuration to an expanded operational configuration, allowing the electrodes to contact tissue while maintaining structural integrity through the segmented design
Solution Approach 2:
The catheter employs dynamic structural members that can change from a compressed state during delivery to an expanded state during operation. The end effector expands after delivery to enable electrode contact with cardiac tissue, transforming the structural characteristics from stiff and fixed to flexible and adaptable
2Measurement precision
If catheter is made flexible to conform to anatomy, then mapping resolution is improved, but structural integrity deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The catheter is segmented into a collapsible body portion and an expandable end effector portion. This segmentation allows the distal end effector to expand and conform to cardiac anatomy for high-resolution mapping while the proximal body remains structurally intact for safe delivery through vasculature
Solution Approach 2:
The end effector is designed to be nested within the catheter body during delivery, similar to a nested doll structure. Upon deployment, the end effector expands outward from the catheter body, enabling anatomical conformity for precise mapping while maintaining the overall structural integrity of the delivery system
3Ease of operation
If catheter is made collapsible for atraumatic advancement, then ease of operation is improved, but structural integrity deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The catheter employs dynamic structural characteristics that allow it to be compressed during delivery for atraumatic advancement through vasculature, then expand at the target site to maintain structural integrity for stable electrode contact and data collection during mapping procedures
Data Source
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AI summary
A multilayered end effector for a mapping catheter including a first flexible circuit, a framework generally parallel to the first flexible circuit and separated therefrom by a first orthogonal gap orthogonal to the longitudinal axis, a second flexible circuit, and a location sensing coil layer having a plurality of coils suitably oriented and preferably disposed generally parallel to the framework and separated from the framework by a second orthogonal gap. The second flexible circuit can be separated from the location sensing coil layer by a third orthogonal gap. The first orthogonal gap, the second orthogonal gap, and the third orthogonal gap can be filled with a flexible non-conductive material, and the first face of the first flexible circuit and the first face of the second flexible circuit being coated with the flexible non-conductive material.