Steerable Guide Catheter Slotted Torque Tube Vascular Access
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing guide catheters have limitations in accessing varying patient anatomies due to fixed shapes, which hinders efficient navigation and support for interventional devices, leading to increased procedural time and radiation exposure.
Innovation Solution
Development of steerable guide catheters with a deflectable segment and slotted nitinol torque tube technology, allowing for adjustable curvature and improved torque transfer, enabling access to difficult-to-reach vascular regions while maintaining a thin wall and large lumen for device passage.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a guide catheter is made with a fixed pre-formed shape to access specific anatomic locations, then it can reach the target location effectively, but it cannot adapt to varying patient anatomies and increases procedural time
Solution Approach 1:
The guide catheter incorporates a deflectable segment with a pull wire and torque tube that allows dynamic adjustment of the catheter shape during the procedure. The pull wire can be manipulated to deflect the distal tip in desired directions, enabling adaptation to varying patient anatomies without requiring multiple fixed-shaped catheters or extended procedural time.
Solution Approach 2:
The guide catheter is divided into distinct segments: a proximal shaft portion and a distal deflectable segment. This segmentation allows the proximal portion to maintain structural integrity while the distal segment can be independently deflected to access different vascular locations, resolving the contradiction between fixed shape effectiveness and adaptability.
2Ease of operation
If a guide catheter is made thin-walled and flexible to navigate vascular structures, then it can be steered to target locations, but it reduces support for interventional devices and increases curvature limitations
Solution Approach 1:
The guide catheter uses a composite structure combining a polymer shaft with a nested metal torque tube. The polymer provides flexibility and steerability, while the metal torque tube maintains structural support and enables torque transmission. This composite design allows the catheter to be both steerable and supportive, resolving the contradiction between flexibility and strength.
Solution Approach 2:
The torque tube acts as an intermediary element between the proximal shaft and distal tip. It transmits torque from the proximal end to the distal end, enabling steering while maintaining structural integrity. The torque tube serves as a mechanical mediator that allows the thin-walled flexible catheter to provide adequate support for interventional devices.
3Adaptability or versatility
If a guide catheter is designed with a specific pre-formed shape for a narrow function, then it performs its function effectively, but it cannot access multiple different vascular locations
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of using multiple fixed-shaped catheters for different vascular locations, the guide catheter employs a single dynamic design with a deflectable distal segment. The pull wire mechanism allows the catheter to be configured for different vascular locations during the procedure, reducing device complexity while maintaining versatility.
Solution Approach 2:
The guide catheter is designed as a universal device that can access multiple vascular locations through its deflectable segment. By incorporating the torque tube and pull wire system, a single catheter can perform multiple functions of accessing different vascular territories, eliminating the need for multiple specialized catheters.
4Ease of operation
If a guide catheter is made straight-configured for insertion to avoid dragging or scraping, then it can be advanced to target locations, but it cannot maintain curvature to access angled vascular structures
Solution Approach 1:
The guide catheter maintains a straight configuration during insertion to avoid vessel damage, then dynamically develops curvature through pull wire manipulation at the deflectable segment. This allows the catheter to be advanced straight and then shaped to access angled vascular structures like the coronary arteries, resolving the contradiction between straight insertion and curved navigation.
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 steerable guide catheters provide atraumatic access to challenging vascular locations, reducing procedural time, minimizing vessel damage, and enhancing the delivery of interventional devices with improved control and visibility under fluoroscopy and MRI.
Implementation Method 1
They are thin-walled and flexible, but can transmit some torque from the proximal end to the distal end to allow the doctor to steer the distal end to the location of interest
Implementation Method 2
steerable guide catheters with a deflectable segment and slotted nitinol torque tube technology
Implementation Method 3
steerable guide catheters with a deflectable segment and slotted nitinol torque tube technology, allowing for adjustable curvature
Data Source
AI summary
Methods for easy, atraumatic access to areas of the vasculature that are otherwise difficult to access, using steerable guide catheters constructed with components that are selected to provide optimal navigability, torque transfer, and push ability for a variety of typical percutaneous access routes. The catheter wall thickness in the deflecting segment of the guide catheter is about 1 French (⅓ mm) or less, and includes a slotted deflection tube, and this construction allows a very tight turning radius which in turn enables guide catheter access to regions of the vasculature that are otherwise inaccessible.