JPH0235564B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an endoscope, and more particularly, to an endoscope in which the distal end of the body cavity insertion portion is made of a metal material.

In an endoscope that performs high-frequency ablation while observing an affected area within a body cavity, the outer peripheral surface of the endoscope that is inserted into the body cavity is electrically connected to prevent burns caused by leakage of high-frequency current from the affected area within the body cavity. Must be completely insulated. By the way, a conventional endoscope of this type was constructed as shown in FIG. That is, the endoscope 1 mainly consists of an operating section 2 that is operated at hand outside the body cavity, and a flexible body cavity insertion section 3 that is inserted into the body cavity.

As is well known, the hand operation section 2 includes an air/water supply button 7, a suction button 8, a forceps insertion port 9, and an eyepiece section 1.
0, a light source connecting part 11, etc. are provided, and the body cavity insertion part 3 connected to the hand operating part 2 is connected to a flexible tube part 4, a curved part 5, and a distal end component part 6 in order from the hand operating part 3. It is configured as follows. The above-mentioned flexible body cavity insertion part 3 requires strength in the core material of the flexible tube part 4, the curved part 5, and the tip structure part 6 due to its function, so metal materials that are electrical conductors are used. Therefore, the outer peripheral surfaces of the flexible tube part 4 and the curved part 5 are covered with an electrically insulating outer skin (not shown) made of synthetic resin or synthetic rubber, and the tip component part 6 is also electrically insulated. It was designed to be covered with an insulating tip cover 13 (see Figures 2 and 3). Further, the tip cover 13 is attached to the tip structure main body 1 forming the tip structure 6.
Since it is attached to 2 by adhesive, if it is used for a long time and is repeatedly sterilized, the adhesive will deteriorate due to corrosion etc., and the tip cover will peel off from the adhesive surface and fall off. There is a risk of an accident. Therefore, conventionally, as shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, a means has been adopted for fixing the tip cover 13 to the tip component main body 12 with screws 15 and 17.

However, in order to pass the screws 15 and 17 through the screw holes 14 and 16 of the tip cover 13 and screw them to the tip component body 12, the tip cover 13 must be attached to at least the top portions of the screws 15 and 17, respectively. It is necessary to make the thickness a and b within a range that does not protrude, which is greater than the thickness necessary for electrical insulation. Therefore, the tip component 13 becomes larger, which is a serious drawback for an endoscope that would be advantageous to make the diameter as small as possible.Furthermore, the processing of the parts is complicated and the installation thereof is also troublesome, leading to increased costs. It was also a contributing factor.

In view of the above-mentioned points, an object of the present invention is to provide an endoscope in which the above-mentioned drawbacks are completely and simply eliminated by coating the outer surface of the distal end component with an electrically insulating ceramic film. It is in.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be explained based on illustrated embodiments.

FIG. 4 is an enlarged sectional view of the distal end component of an endoscope showing one embodiment of the present invention. It should be noted that the configuration of the endoscope in this embodiment other than the distal end component 6A is configured exactly the same as the configuration of the endoscope 1 shown in FIG. 1 above, so a description thereof will be omitted. In FIG. 4, the flexible tube section 4 and the curved section 5 of the body cavity insertion section 3 (see FIG. 1) in the endoscope of the present invention have an electrically insulating and elastic outer sheath 20 similar to the conventional ones. covered by. The above-mentioned tip structure part 6A
As is well known, the main body 21 is provided with an endoscope observation window 23, an illumination window (not shown), and a forceps entrance/exit hole 24.
3 has a well-known image guide 27 at its rear end.
An objective lens 26 is fitted into the intermediate part, and a cover glass 25 forming an observation window is fitted into the distal end. As is well known, the rear end portion of the image guide 27 is guided to the eyepiece portion 10 of the hand operation portion 2 through the curved portion 5 and the flexible tube portion 4. Further, the forceps entrance/exit hole 24 communicates with the forceps insertion port 9 of the hand operation section 2. A ceramic film 28 having excellent electrical insulation, corrosion resistance, chemical resistance, and abrasion resistance is formed by ceramic coating on the tip surface 21a and the entire outer peripheral surface of the tip component main body 21 configured as described above. ing. This ceramic film 28 is made by applying a suspension-like ceramic coating agent containing zirconia, silicon nitride, silicon carbide, zircon, and silicon dioxide to the surface by a method such as dipping, spraying, printing, or brushing, and then air-drying it. It is obtained by surface modification similar to that of ordinary ceramics, which requires high-temperature firing at 100°C for 20 minutes.
The ceramic film 28 formed in this way is
firmly adhered to the entire outer surface of the tip component main body 21,
When the coating thickness is 20 to 40 μm, the coating will be robust and will not crack even under thermal shock and will not peel off easily, and will have sufficient electrical insulation, corrosion resistance, and chemical resistance. . The above-mentioned ceramic coating agents include "Ceramica C-2000" and "Ceramica C-2000".
1300'' (manufactured by KK Nippan Institute) etc. are suitable.

Next, the above-mentioned ceramic film is applied to the distal end component, which has a well-known jet nozzle member protruding from the distal end surface of the endoscope's distal end component body for cleaning the observation window and illumination window surface. Another coated example will be described. Incidentally, as a measure for electrically insulating the distal end component of a conventional endoscope of this type from the outside, a configuration as shown in FIG. 5 has been adopted. In addition, in FIG. 5, except for the tip cover, the jet nozzle member, and their related members, the structure is exactly the same as that of the tip component 6A in FIG. Stop, I'll omit the explanation. The above jet nozzle member 2
Reference numeral 9 is formed of a metal pipe whose tip part is bent at a substantially right angle, and its base part is provided with a feed line passing through the main body 21, which is provided parallel to the observation window hole 23 of the tip component main body 21. An insulating cylinder 32 made of electrically insulating material is installed in the large-diameter mounting hole 33 of the pneumatic water supply hole 30.
It is fitted through. The tip portion protruding from the tip surface of the tip component member 6A and being bent faces the cover glass 25 of the observation window. The rear end of the air/water supply hole 30 is connected to an air/water supply channel (not shown) disposed inside the body cavity insertion section 3 (see FIG. It communicates with an air and water supply port (not shown). A tip cover 36 similar to the tip cover 13 shown in FIG.
is fixed to the tip component body 21 by screwing a fixing screw 37 into a screw hole 35 provided in the tip component body 21 through a screw attachment hole 31 drilled in the outer peripheral wall thereof. . The fixing screw 37 is attached so as not to protrude from the screw attachment hole 31, and the attachment hole 31 is closed and covered with an insulating plug 38 made of electrically insulating adhesive. With the above configuration, the tip component main body 21 and the jet nozzle member 29 are electrically insulated via the insulating tube 32, and
The entire surface of the tip component main body 21 was electrically insulated from the outside by the tip cover 36.

However, if such a tip cover 36 is used, the disadvantage is that the outer diameter of the tip component body 21 becomes large, as in the case of the tip cover 13 shown in FIG. 2 above. Furthermore, the jet nozzle member 2
9 has a complicated structure in that it must be attached to the tip component main body 21 via an insulating tube 32,
This was a cause of high costs. Even in the case where the jet nozzle member 29 is provided in the tip component main body 21 in this way, the above-mentioned drawbacks can be completely and easily overcome by the present invention using the ceramic film described above.

Next, another embodiment of the present invention in which the tip component provided with the jet nozzle member is coated with the ceramic film will be described with reference to FIG. In addition, in FIG. 6, the tip structure portion 6A in FIG.
Components that are constructed in exactly the same way as in the figure are designated by the same reference numerals, and their explanation will be omitted. In this embodiment, the distal end component 6B has a mounting structure in which the base of the jet nozzle member 29 is directly connected to the distal end of the air/water supply hole 30 without intervening the insulating tube 32 shown in FIG. It is fitted into the hole 33 and firmly fixed by adhesive, soldering, brazing, or the like. Then, the tip component main body 2
1 and the entire outer surface of the jet nozzle member 29 protruding from the main body 21 is similarly coated with a ceramic film 40 similar to the ceramic film 28 in FIG. At this time, the ceramic film 40 is attached to the tip component 6B and the jet nozzle member 29.
In addition to providing electrical insulation, water resistance, and chemical resistance, the jet nozzle member 29 is
This prevents the adhesive from falling off by pressing the adhesive on the adhesive, and also prevents water, chemical liquid, etc. from seeping into the interface between the two. That is, with an extremely simple structure, the drawbacks of the conventional tip structure with an ejection nozzle of this type can be completely overcome.

FIG. 7 shows still another embodiment of the present invention, in which the jet nozzle member 29 is integrally fixed to the tip component main body 21 using the ceramic film 40. In the tip structure 6B shown in FIG. 6 above, the base of the jet nozzle member 29 is fixed to the attachment hole 33 of the tip structure main body 21 with adhesive or the like, but the tip structure in this embodiment is different from the one shown in FIG. In the part 6C, the ceramic coating agent is applied to the inner peripheral surface of the mounting hole 33, and the jet nozzle member 29 is attached to the mounting hole 33 before drying at room temperature.
A ceramic film 40 is formed in the gap between the two in accordance with the coating method described above.
Even in this case, the two are fixed with sufficient adhesive force. In addition, when using the above-mentioned ceramic coating agent as a ceramic adhesive, as shown in FIG. Therefore, the excess ceramic coating agent can enter the hole 29a and harden to form a good slip-out prevention protrusion 34. Furthermore, for the same reason, it is of course possible to form irregularities on the outer surfaces of the tip component main body 21 and the jet nozzle member 29 by sandblasting, machining, etc. to improve the adhesion of the ceramic film 40. .

In the above explanation, we focused on the electrical insulation of the tip component of the endoscope, so we only talked about the formation of a ceramic film on the outer surface of the tip component body and the jet nozzle member. Of course, the above ceramic film may also be similarly formed on the inner surface of the jet nozzle member, the inner surface of the air supply channel, the inner surface of the forceps channel, etc., with the intention of preventing corrosion of the entire exposed metal part. .

As explained above, according to the present invention, (1) the surfaces of the tip component main body and the jet nozzle member, which are made of a metal that is a conductor, can be made electrically insulating very easily. (2) Parts such as the tip cover and screws for preventing the tip cover from coming off can be omitted, allowing the tip component to have an extremely simple structure. (3) Costs can be significantly reduced by simplifying parts and manufacturing processes. (4) Due to the water resistance, chemical resistance, acid resistance, alkali resistance, wear resistance, etc. of the ceramic film, it is possible to prevent performance deterioration and accidents due to corrosion and wear of the tip component body and jet nozzle members. (5) Since the ceramic film can be very thin at 20 to 40 μm, it is possible to provide an endoscope with extremely significant effects such as the ability to make the outer diameter of the tip component sufficiently thin.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side view showing an example of an endoscope;
3 is an enlarged sectional view showing an example of the distal end component of a conventional endoscope, FIG. 4 is an enlarged sectional view of the distal end component of an endoscope according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 6 is an enlarged sectional view showing an example of a distal end component with a jet nozzle member of a conventional endoscope, and FIGS. 6 to 8 are enlarged sectional views of the distal end component of an endoscope showing other embodiments of the present invention, respectively. It is a diagram. 1...Endoscope, 3...Intrabody cavity insertion part, 6, 6
A, 6B, 6C...Tip component, 12, 21...
Tip component main body, 28, 40...ceramic membrane,
29...Ejection nozzle member.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. An endoscope in which the distal end component of the body cavity insertion part is made of a metal material, the outer surface of the distal end component body being coated with an electrically insulating ceramic film. An endoscope characterized by having a shape. 2. The device according to claim 1, wherein the externally exposed surface of the jet nozzle member attached to the tip structure body is coated with the ceramic film together with the outer surface of the tip structure body. Endoscope. 3. The endoscope according to claim 2, wherein the ejection nozzle member attached to the tip component main body is adhesively fixed with the ceramic film.