JP3304161B2 - Endoscope protective cover - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a protective cover for an endoscope which covers the insertion portion of an endoscope having an insertion portion to be inserted into a lumen.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, observation and treatment of an observation site by an endoscope which inserts an insertion portion into a body cavity occupy important positions in examination and treatment. In such an endoscope, cleaning and sterilization after use is performed. However, the cleaning and sterilization takes time, and in an electronic endoscope provided with electronic components such as an imaging device, cleaning and sterilization are performed. There is a possibility that parts may be deteriorated due to an environment such as high temperature and high humidity due to the processing.

Therefore, Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 2-8126 and Japanese Utility Model Laid-open No. 3
As shown in JP-A-101901, Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 3-101902, Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 3-101906, etc., a protective cover for an endoscope for protecting an endoscope has been proposed. In these proposals, a protective cover is attached to the endoscope, and the protective cover is replaced for each clinical case so that the endoscope main body is not contaminated and the endoscope can be used repeatedly without washing. ing.

In particular, in the protective cover for an endoscope disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 3-101901, in order to prevent the end of the endoscope from deviating from a predetermined position and failing to secure a visual field,
A technique has been disclosed in which a rigid member provided at the distal end of a protective cover for an endoscope is engaged with a rigid portion at the distal end of the endoscope.

[0005]

However, in the technique disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-Open No. 3-101901, as shown in FIG.
In the case of the protective cover 105 (for the endoscope) which covers the endoscope provided with the insertion portion 104 including the flexible portion 103 having the “02”, the rigid member 106 at the tip of the protective cover 105 is bent every time the bending portion 102 is bent. Subject to repeated forces in the longitudinal direction.
In other words, in the example of bending upward, the protective cover 105 on the inner side in the bending direction receives a compressive force.
6 receives a force in the direction to come off. On the other hand, since the protective cover on the outer peripheral side in the bending direction receives a tensile force, the rigid member 106 receives a force in the mounting direction. That is, by repeatedly receiving the above-mentioned force, the predetermined positions of the distal end rigid portion 101 of the endoscope and the rigid member 106 of the protective cover are shifted, and there is a problem that the visual field of the endoscope is significantly impaired.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and provides a protective cover for an endoscope which can maintain a mounting positional relationship with the endoscope even in a repeated bending operation of the endoscope. It is intended to be.

[0007]

The protective cover for an endoscope according to the present invention is provided so that the insertion portion of the endoscope can be inserted thereinto,
Hollow tube made of shrinkable elastic material
Body , provided at the tip of the tube body, having rigidity
A tip formed of a material, the endoscope in the tube body
When the insertion portion of the endoscope is inserted, the tip of the insertion portion of the endoscope
A contact portion provided on the tip surfaces abutting said Ji
Formed at the base end of the tube body and made of a hard material
And a tube body provided at the hand portion,
When the insertion portion of the endoscope is inserted into the
Connected to the operation section of the endoscope against elastic force in the contraction direction
And connection means for the connection .

[0008]

[Operation] In the above configuration, an endoscope is attached to the tube body.
When the insertion part of the tube body is inserted, the rigid hand
By the connecting means provided at the base, the tube body is contracted.
The rigidity of the operating part of the endoscope against the elastic force in the
Connect the wrist .

[0009]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIGS. 1 to 3 relate to a first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 1 is a structural view showing a structure of a protective cover mounted on an endoscope, and FIG. 2 is a first modification of a rigid portion of FIG. FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram showing a configuration of an example, and FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram showing a configuration of a second modification of the rigid portion of FIG.

As shown in FIG. 1, the protective cover 1 is attached so as to cover the insertion portion 9 of the endoscope 2. The insertion portion 9 of the endoscope 2 is composed of a distal rigid portion 3, a curved portion 4, a flexible portion 5, and a proximal component portion 6 from the distal end.
Is composed of a rigid part 7, a flexible tube part 8, and a hand part 10 from the tip.

The hard portion 7 is made of, for example, hard polyethylene, and a transparent window 11 is provided at a portion corresponding to an objective lens (not shown) provided at the tip of the tip hard portion 3 of the endoscope 2 and an emission end of light guide light. Have. The flexible tube portion 8 is made of EVA, hard polyethylene, or the like, and is fixed to the hand portion 10 side of the hard portion 7 by means such as adhesion or dissolution. The hand portion 10 is formed of the same material as the hard portion 7.

The rigid portion 7 covers the distal end rigid portion 3 of the insertion portion 9, and the flexible tube portion 8 covers at least the curved portion 4. Then, in the mounted state, the tip rigid portion 3
And the tip of the rigid portion 7 are in contact with each other. A locking groove 13 is provided on the outer periphery of the base end component 6, and is fitted to and engaged with a locking projection 12 provided on an inner peripheral surface of the hand portion 10.

The locking projection 12 extends from the contact surface at the tip of the component 7.
The lower distance is set shorter than the distance from the distal end of the distal end rigid portion 3 of the insertion portion 9 to the locking groove 13, whereby the flexible tube portion 8 receives tension while it is mounted, The hard part 7 is pressed against the tip hard part 3.

In the protective cover 1 configured as described above, when the endoscope 2 is bent, a force is applied in a direction in which the rigid portion 7 comes out or in a direction in which the rigid portion 7 is attached.
Is pressed against the rigid distal end portion 3 by the tension in the mounting direction, the predetermined positional relationship between the rigid portion 7 and the rigid distal end portion 3 is maintained, and a sufficient visual field can be secured.

Although the positional relationship between the rigid tip portion 3 and the rigid portion 10 is maintained by the tension in the mounting direction on the flexible tube 8, in addition to this, as shown in FIG.
In this case, a predetermined positional relationship may be maintained by providing a locking groove 15 on the outer periphery and engaging with a locking projection 14 provided on the inner peripheral surface of the rigid portion 7.

In this case, when the rigid portion 7 is removed, a tensile force is applied to the insertion portion 9, which may damage the curved portion 4 and the internal components in the insertion portion 9. Since the position is only fixed, no tensile force is applied to the insertion portion 9 when removing it, and there is no possibility that the insertion portion 9 may be damaged.

In the above description, the positional relationship of the longitudinal axis of the rigid portion 7 and the distal end rigid portion 3 in the rotational direction has not been mentioned, but as a means for positioning in the rotational direction, FIG.
As shown in the figure, a flat portion 23 is provided on the outer peripheral surface of the distal end hard portion 7a, and a corresponding flat portion 25 is provided on the inner peripheral surface of the hard portion 3a. Thereby, the position of the objective lens 22 and the transparent window 26 and the position of the illumination light emitting lens 21 and the transparent window 24 can be matched. In this case, the plane portion 2
Although the rotation direction is regulated by 3 and 25, it is needless to say that the shape may be any other than a flat portion as long as it has an engaging portion capable of regulating the rotation direction.

Next, a second embodiment will be described. 4 to 6 relate to the second embodiment, FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram showing the configuration of the tip of the protective cover, FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional diagram showing a cross section taken along line AA ′ of FIG. 4, and FIG. FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view illustrating a configuration of an image guide. Since the second embodiment is almost the same as the first embodiment, only different configurations will be described.

In the second embodiment, the transparent window 11 of the first embodiment is used.
As shown in FIG. 4, an opening 30 is provided, a fluid is caused to flow through a gap 33 between the insertion portion 9 and the protective cover 1, and the washing is performed by flowing the fluid through the outlet 34 of the opening 30 to the objective lens 21. ing. And the objective lens 2 thus cleaned
The subject image incident from 1 is transmitted to an eyepiece (not shown) by an image guide 31 inserted through the insertion section 9 via an optical unit 32. The contact surface between the distal end of the distal end rigid portion 7 and the distal end of the rigid portion 3b of the protective cover 1 is formed by a contact portion 35 provided on the distal end rigid portion 7. That is, as shown in FIG. 5 which is a cross section taken along the line AA ′, the tip of the tip rigid portion 7 and the tip of the hard portion 3b are
5, a contact surface is formed, and a plurality of the outlets 34 are formed between the contact portions 35 to clean the objective lens 21.

In the image guide 31, a glud is provided around the core. A plurality of fiber strands 41 are arranged in a jacket glass pipe 42, and a first coating layer 4 is provided around the jacket glass pipe 42.
Third, the second coat layer 44 is sequentially laminated. The first coat layer 43 is, for example, a UV curable resin or a silicone resin, and has a function of protecting the surface of the jacket glass pipe 42 from being damaged. On the other hand, the second coat layer 44 is a coat layer composed of at least one of a saturated higher fatty acid represented by the following chemical formula (1) or an alkylpolysiloxane represented by the following chemical formula (2).

CnH2n + 1COOH (where n = 9,11,13,15,17,19) (1)

Embedded image However, in the chemical formula (2), n is an integer greater than 1.
R1 represents a lower alkyl group having 1 to 7 carbon atoms, R2 represents hydrogen, a lower alkyl group having 1 to 7 carbon atoms or an aryl group having about 6 carbon atoms.

The second coat layer 44 has an anti-friction effect, and facilitates the work of inserting the image guide 31 into the insertion portion 9.

Other configurations, operations and effects are the same as those of the first embodiment.

[0025]

As described above, according to the endoscope protective cover of the present invention, it can be easily attached and detached.
In addition, even with repeated bending operations of the endoscope,
The mounting positional relationship can be maintained .

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing a configuration of a protective cover attached to an endoscope according to a first embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram showing a configuration of a first modified example of the rigid portion in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram showing a configuration of a second modified example of the rigid portion in FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram illustrating a configuration of a tip of a protective cover according to a second embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a sectional view showing a section taken along line A-A ′ of FIG. 4;

FIG. 6 is a sectional view showing the configuration of the image guide of FIG. 4;

FIG. 7 is a configuration diagram showing a configuration of a protective cover attached to an endoscope according to a conventional example.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Protective cover 7 ... Hard part 8 ... Flexible tube part 10 ... Hand part 11 ... Transparent window 12 ... Locking projection

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. An endoscope insertion portion is provided so as to be inserted therein,
Hollow tube made of stretchable elastic material
And a hard material provided at the tip of the tube body.
When the inserted end portion of the endoscope is inserted into the formed distal end portion and the tube body,
The endoscope is installed at the distal end of the
The abutted portion, which is provided at the base end of the tube body, is made of a material having rigidity.
The formed hand portion and the end portion of the endoscope are provided on the hand portion and the tube body.
When the insertion portion is inserted, the elastic
Connection means connected to the operation unit of the endoscope against sexual force
And a protective cover for an endoscope , comprising: