Telescopic Hand Unit for Single-Stroke Stent Deployment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional stent deployment mechanisms are laborious for lengthy stents, requiring multiple translations and potentially causing tissue trauma due to axial stress during deployment, especially when using self-expanding stents with high friction forces and small passing diameters.
Innovation Solution
A hand unit with a guide path extender that provides an increased guide path length, allowing for a single smooth stroke deployment of lengthy implants, using a telescopic tube arrangement or endwise assembly of guide rail portions to minimize tissue trauma and efficiently transmit deployment force.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If a conventional stent deployment mechanism is used, then the deployment can be completed, but multiple translations are required which causes laborious operation and potential tissue trauma
Solution Approach 1:
The guide rail is designed to be extendable along the longitudinal axis, transforming from a compact state during insertion to an extended state during deployment. This dynamic structural change enables the pull grip to traverse a longer distance in a single continuous motion, converting multiple discrete translations into one smooth deployment stroke that reduces operational complexity and time.
Solution Approach 2:
The guide rail is divided into multiple segments or portions that can be assembled endwise to achieve the required total length. This segmentation allows the system to provide a long guide path for single-stroke deployment while maintaining manageable individual component sizes that can be easily inserted and assembled within the catheter structure.
2Ease of operation
If the guide path length is increased for lengthy stents, then single smooth stroke deployment is enabled, but the hand unit length increases
Solution Approach 1:
The guide rail portions are designed to be movable relative to each other, allowing the guide rail to extend to full length only when needed for deployment. During insertion and positioning, the guide rail portions can be retracted or collapsed, keeping the hand unit compact. This dynamic extension mechanism enables long guide paths without permanently increasing the hand unit's insertion length.
Solution Approach 2:
The guide rail portions are arranged to nest within each other when retracted, similar to a telescopic structure. This nesting allows the long guide path to be contained within a compact volume during non-deployment phases, while providing full extension capability when deployment is required, thus resolving the conflict between operational smoothness and hand unit compactness.
Data Source
Figure 1~2
Figure 3A~3C
AI summary
An elongate hand unit for deploying an elongate implant from the distal end of a delivery catheter, which catheter has a shaft between the distal end carrying the implant and a proximal end to which the hand unit may be coupled, the shaft comprising a push element to maintain the position of the implant during deployment and a pull element to be pulled proximally relative to the push element, by a release distance sufficient to deploy the implant: the hand unit having a distal end and a proximal end separated by a hand unit length, and comprising a pull component and a push component; the pull component having a pull grip, to be gripped and pulled proximally by the release distance, sliding on the push component, thereby to pull the pull element proximally, thereby to deploy the implant; the push component to be operatively connected to the push element of the catheter shaft and having at its proximal end a push surface to receive during deployment of the implant a force that pushes on the push element shaft to resist proximal movement of the implant during deployment, the push component providing a guide rail that defines a guide path for the pull grip, with a guide path length along which the pull grip can slide proximally, from a distal to a proximal end of the guide rail whereby the proximal movement of the pull grip along the guide path deploys the implant.