Stent Flap Membrane for Vascular Occlusion Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current medical devices, such as stents and flow diverters, face challenges in reliably supporting body cavities while allowing controlled fluid flow, particularly in treating stenoses and aneurysms, as they often disrupt blood flow or allow particles to enter the bloodstream, leading to complications like thrombosis and vascular occlusion.
Innovation Solution
A medical device with a tubular wall and flexible membrane flaps that can be moved between open and closed positions, automatically or manually, to control fluid flow, allowing for targeted lateral or axial flow direction and preventing axial flow counter to the main direction, thereby enabling effective treatment of stenoses and aneurysms while minimizing complications.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a stent with a lattice structure is used to widen vascular constrictions, then the stenosis can be effectively treated, but particles may detach from the vulnerable plaque and enter the bloodstream causing vascular occlusion
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies a flexible membrane that can be moved between open and closed positions to cover the lattice structure. When closed, the membrane prevents particle detachment from vulnerable plaques while allowing the stent to maintain its lattice structure for effective stenosis treatment. The membrane acts as a protective barrier without compromising the mechanical function of the stent.
2Object-generated harmful factors
If a flexible film completely spans the lattice structure to prevent particle detachment, then particle release is reduced, but blood flow into branching vessels is interrupted
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the continuous membrane into segmented flaps that can be independently positioned. These flaps can be opened in specific regions to allow blood flow into branching vessels while remaining closed in other regions to prevent particle detachment. This segmentation enables selective control of blood flow paths without compromising particle containment.
Solution Approach 2:
The membrane is designed as dynamic flaps that can change position between open and closed states. This dynamic capability allows the system to adapt to different physiological conditions, opening to permit blood flow to branches when needed and closing to prevent particle release, thereby resolving the contradiction between particle containment and blood flow maintenance.
3Reliability
If a stent with small mesh size is used to cover aneurysms, then blood flow within the aneurysm is stopped, but it becomes difficult to insert coils into the aneurysm
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs a dynamic membrane flap system that can transition between open and closed positions. During coil insertion, the flaps are opened to provide wide access to the aneurysm cavity, allowing easy insertion of coils. After coil placement, the flaps close to maintain the small effective mesh size for stopping blood flow within the aneurysm. This temporal separation of functions resolves the contradiction between accessibility and effectiveness.
4Ease of operation
If a stent with large mesh size is used to facilitate coil insertion, then coil access is improved, but individual coil sections can protrude into the blood vessel and larger meshes still permit blood flow within the aneurysm
Solution Approach 1:
The membrane flaps provide dynamic control that allows the system to have large effective opening for coil insertion when needed, then close to create small effective mesh size for preventing coil protrusion and stopping blood flow. The flaps act as an adaptive barrier that adjusts the effective mesh size based on the operational phase, resolving the contradiction between insertion ease and coverage reliability.
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 device effectively covers stenoses and aneurysms, allowing for the insertion of coils and ensuring blood flow is maintained, while preventing particles from entering the bloodstream, thus reducing the risk of thrombosis and vascular occlusion, and can be adapted for use in vascular branches and bifurcations.
Implementation Method 1
The flap can be moved into an open position and into a closed position by acting on the flap with a force, in particular by acting on the flap with a pressure gradient
Implementation Method 2
In the blood vessel, the stent widens or the stent expands and exerts a radial force on the vessel wall
Implementation Method 3
Such stents usually have a shape-memory material that assumes the previously defined shape at body temperature
Data Source
Figure 1
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AI summary
A medicinal device with a tubular wall made of webs which delimit the cells, and a flexible membrane which forms at least one flap which has a first end connected to at least one first web of a cell, and a free second end which is disposed opposite the first end in the longitudinal direction of the flap. The flap, in the closed position, extends along the tubular wall and at least partially closes the cells, and can be moved to an open position in which the flap is radially deviated in relation to the wall in order to open the cells in a valve-like manner.