Sensor Guide Wire Jacket with Apertures for Intravascular Navigation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current medical devices for intravascular measurements of physiological variables, such as pressure and temperature, face challenges in safety, accuracy, and maneuverability within the body's vasculature, particularly in navigating tortuous paths and ensuring reliable data collection.
Innovation Solution
A sensor guide wire with a cylindrical-shaped jacket featuring apertures and slots along its outer circumferential wall, allowing fluid passage and enhanced flexibility, combined with a mounting structure for freely suspending the sensor element, facilitates accurate measurement and improved maneuverability through the vascular network.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the sensor guide wire uses a solid jacket structure to protect the sensor element, then the reliability and protection of the sensor is improved, but the flexibility and ease of navigation through tortuous vascular paths deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The jacket is designed with a porous structure containing multiple channels that allow fluid passage while maintaining structural integrity. This porous configuration enables the jacket to protect the sensor element from mechanical damage while simultaneously allowing flexibility and fluid interaction for accurate physiological measurements
Solution Approach 2:
The jacket is segmented into multiple sections with varying degrees of porosity and channel density. The distal portion has higher porosity for sensor exposure, while proximal portions have lower porosity for structural support, resolving the contradiction between protection and flexibility at different locations
2Stability of the object's composition
If the sensor guide wire uses a rigid structure to maintain structural integrity, then the reliability of the device is improved, but the ability to navigate tortuous vascular paths deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
Different sections of the guide wire have different structural properties. The distal end with the sensor has a more porous and flexible jacket for navigation and sensor exposure, while proximal sections have a denser, more rigid structure for overall support, allowing the device to adapt to tortuous paths while maintaining structural integrity
Solution Approach 2:
The guide wire employs composite construction with the jacket made from materials that combine rigidity and flexibility characteristics. The multi-channel porous structure creates a composite effect where the walls provide structural strength while the channels provide flexibility and fluid passage
3Reliability
If the sensor element is mounted rigidly in the guide wire, then the measurement stability is improved, but the sensor's exposure to fluid for accurate measurement deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The jacket's porous structure with multiple channels allows fluid to reach the sensor element while the sensor remains mounted within the jacket structure. This provides both stable mounting for measurement reliability and sufficient fluid exposure for measurement precision
Solution Approach 2:
The porous jacket acts as an intermediary between the sensor element and the external fluid environment. It allows fluid passage to the sensor for accurate measurement while maintaining the sensor's stable mounting position within the protected interior of the jacket
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 the safety and accuracy of intravascular measurements by allowing for more precise navigation through blood vessels and reducing the rigidity of the sensor guide wire, making it easier to use in complex vascular paths while maintaining reliable data collection.
Implementation Method 1
The outer circumferential wall includes at least one aperture along its circumferential surface so as to permit passage of the fluid through the outer circumferential wall
Implementation Method 2
a mounting structure supporting the sensor element in a freely suspended manner in a lumen within the sensor guide wire
Data Source
AI summary
A sensor guide wire for an intravascular measurement of a physiological variable in a living body, may comprise a proximal tube portion; a distal end portion; and a sensor element configured to measure the physiological variable based on exposure to fluid in the living body. The sensor guide wire may further comprise a mounting structure supporting the sensor element in a freely suspended manner in a lumen within the sensor guide wire and/or a cylindrical-shaped jacket forming an interior space housing the sensor element and extending from a distal end of the proximal tube portion to a proximal end of the distal end portion in which the outer circumferential wall of the jacket includes a plurality of slots located between at least one aperture of the outer circumferential wall and one of the distal and proximal ends of the jacket.