JPH06304118A - Protective cover for endoscope - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain the protective cover for an endoscope, which can maintain an installing position relation to the endoscope even in a repeated bending operation of the endoscope. CONSTITUTION:A hard part 7 covers a tip hard part 3 of an inserting part 9, and a flexible tube part 8 covers at least a curved part 4. Also, in an installed state, the tip of the tip hard part 3 and the tip of the hard part 7 abut on each other. Moreover, in the outside periphery of a base of a base end constituting part 6, a detaining groove 13 is formed, and installed by being engaged to a detaining projection 12 formed on the inside peripheral surface of a handy part 10. A distance from the abutting face of the tip of the hard part 7 to under the detaining projection 12 is set shorter than a distance from the tip of the tip hard part 3 of the inserting part 9 to the detaining groove 13, by which while the flexible tube part 8 receives tension, while it is installed, and the hard part 7 is pressed against the tip hard part 3.

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 for inserting an insertion portion into a body cavity have occupied important positions for inspection and treatment. Such an endoscope undergoes cleaning and sterilization processing after use, but this cleaning and sterilization processing takes time, and in an electronic endoscope equipped with electronic components such as an image sensor, cleaning and sterilization processing is performed. There is a possibility that the parts may deteriorate due to the environment such as high temperature and high humidity due to the treatment.

Therefore, the actual Kaihei No. 2-8126 and the actual Kaihei 3
As disclosed in No. 101901, No. 3-101902, No. 3-101906, etc., a protective cover for an endoscope that protects the 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 repeatedly used without cleaning or the like. ing.

Particularly, in the endoscope protective cover of Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 3-101901, in order to prevent the field of view from being secured due to deviation from a predetermined position at the tip of the endoscope,
A technique for engaging a rigid member provided at the tip of a protective cover for an endoscope with a rigid portion of the endoscope has been disclosed.

[0005]

However, in the technique of Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 3-101901, as shown in FIG. 7, the tip hard portion 101 is provided at the tip and the curved portion 1 is provided at the rear end.
In the case of the protective cover 105 (for endoscope) that covers the endoscope including the insertion portion 104 including the flexible portion 103 having 02, the rigid member 106 at the tip of the protective cover 105 is bent every time the bending portion 102 is bent. Repeated force is applied in the longitudinal direction.
That is, in the case of bending upward, the protective cover 105 on the inner side in the bending direction receives a compressive force, so the rigid member 10
6 receives a force in the direction to come out. 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, there is a problem in that, by repeatedly receiving the above-mentioned force, the rigid tip portion 101 of the endoscope and the rigid member 106 of the protective cover are displaced from each other by a predetermined position, and the visual field of the endoscope is significantly impaired.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and provides a protective cover for an endoscope capable of maintaining the mounting positional relationship with the endoscope even when the endoscope is repeatedly bent. The purpose is to do.

[0007]

A protective cover for an endoscope according to the present invention comprises a coating tube for coating the insertion portion of an endoscope having an insertion portion to be inserted into a lumen, the coating tube comprising: A first locking portion that locks the endoscope on the distal end side so that the distal end of the endoscope does not protrude from at least the distal end of the coating tube, and is provided on the proximal end side of the coating tube. A second locking portion that locks the endoscope on the proximal end side of the insertion portion, and the first locking portion and the second locking portion.
At least a part of the coating tube between the locking portions is formed of a deformable member that elastically deforms in the longitudinal direction of the coating tube, and the first locking portion to the second portion of the coating tube are provided.
The natural length up to the locking portion is shorter than the length between the locking positions of the endoscope locked by the first locking portion and the second locking portion.

[0008]

[Operation] In the endoscope, the natural length from the first locking portion to the second locking portion of the covering tube is locked by the first locking portion and the second locking portion. Since it is shorter than the length between the locking positions, the tip of the endoscope protective cover will be in the state of pressing the tip of the endoscope when the endoscope is attached, and it must be held in a predetermined position even when the endoscope is bent. Is possible.

[0009]

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

1 to 3 relate to a first embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 1 is a structural view showing the structure of a protective cover mounted on an endoscope, and FIG. 2 is a first modification of the rigid portion of FIG. The block diagram which shows the structure of an example, FIG. 3: is a block diagram which shows the structure of the 2nd modification of the rigid part of FIG.

As shown in FIG. 1, the protective cover 1 is attached to cover the insertion portion 9 of the endoscope 2. The insertion section 9 of the endoscope 2 is composed of a distal end hard section 3, a bending section 4, a flexible section 5, and a proximal end section 6 from the distal end, while the protective cover 1 is provided.
Is composed of a rigid portion 7, a flexible tube portion 8 and a hand portion 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 the emission end of an objective lens or light guide light (not shown) provided at the tip of the tip hard portion 3 of the endoscope 2. Have. The flexible tube portion 8 is made of EVA, hard polyethylene, or the like, and is fixed to the proximal portion 10 side of the rigid portion 7 by means such as adhesion or melting. The hand portion 10 is made of the same material as the hard portion 7.

The rigid portion 7 covers the distal 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. Further, a locking groove 13 is provided on the outer circumference of the base end forming portion 6 and is engaged with the locking projection 12 provided on the inner peripheral surface of the proximal portion 10 to be mounted.

From the abutting surface at the tip of the constituent portion 7 to the locking projection 12
The lower distance is set to be shorter than the distance from the tip of the tip rigid portion 3 of the insertion portion 9 to the locking groove 13, whereby the flexible tube portion 8 receives tension while being attached, The hard part 7 is pressed against the tip hard part 3.

In the thus constructed protective cover 1, when the endoscope 2 is bent, a force is applied in the direction in which the rigid portion 7 comes off or in the direction in which the rigid portion 7 is mounted.
Since it is pressed against the distal end rigid portion 3 by the tension in the mounting direction, the predetermined positional relationship between the rigid portion 7 and the distal end rigid portion 3 is maintained, and a sufficient visual field can be secured.

Although the positional relationship between the tip hard portion 3 and the hard portion 10 is held by the tension in the mounting direction applied to the flexible tube 8, in addition to this, as shown in FIG.
Also in the above, the locking groove 15 may be provided on the outer circumference and the predetermined positional relationship may be maintained by engaging with the locking projection 14 provided on the inner circumferential surface of the rigid portion 7.

In this case, when the hard portion 7 is removed, a tensile force is applied to the insertion portion 9 and may damage the curved portion 4 and internal components inside the insertion portion 9, but the hard portion 7 is pressed by the tension. Since the position is only fixed by, the pulling force is not applied to the insertion portion 9 at the time of removal, and there is no risk of damaging the insertion portion 9.

In the above description, the positional relationship in the rotational direction of the longitudinal axis of the rigid portion 7 and the tip rigid portion 3 was not mentioned, but as a means for positioning in the rotational direction, FIG.
As shown in, the flat portion 23 is provided on the outer peripheral surface of the tip hard portion 7a, and the flat portion 25 corresponding to the flat portion 23 is provided on the inner peripheral surface of the hard portion 3a. This makes it possible to match the positions of the objective lens 22 and the transparent window 26 and the positions of the illumination light emitting lens 21 and the transparent window 24. In this case, the flat portion 2
Although the rotation direction is regulated by 3, 25, it goes without saying that the shape may be any shape as long as it has an engaging portion capable of regulating the rotation direction, instead of the flat portion.

Next, a second embodiment will be described. 4 to 6 relate to the second embodiment, FIG. 4 is a structural view showing the structure of the tip of the protective cover, FIG. 5 is a sectional view showing a cross section taken along the line AA ′ of FIG. 4, and FIG. It is sectional drawing which shows the structure of an image guide. Since the second embodiment is almost the same as the first embodiment, only the different structure will be described.

The second embodiment is the transparent window 11 of the first embodiment.
As shown in FIG. 4, an opening 30 is formed, and a fluid is made to flow in a gap 33 between the insertion portion 9 and the protective cover 1, and is made to flow from the outlet 34 of the opening 30 to the objective lens 21 for cleaning. ing. And the objective lens 2 which is cleaned in this way
The subject image incident from 1 is transmitted to an eyepiece portion (not shown) by an image guide 31 that is inserted through the insertion portion 9 via the optical member 32. The contact surface between the tip of the hard tip portion 7 and the tip of the hard portion 3b of the protective cover 1 is formed by the contact portion 35 provided in the hard tip 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 rigid portion 3b are formed by a plurality of contact portions 3.
A contact surface is formed by 5, and the plurality of outlets 34 are formed between the contact portions 35, so that the objective lens 21 is cleaned.

In the image guide 31, a glad is provided around the core. A plurality of fiber strands 41 are arranged in the jacket glass pipe 42, and the first coat layer 4 is provided around the jacket glass pipe 42.
3 and the second coat layer 44 are 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 scratches. On the other hand, the second coat layer 44 is a coat layer made of at least one of a saturated higher fatty acid represented by the following chemical formula (1) and an alkyl polysiloxane represented by the chemical formula (2).

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

[Chemical 1] 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 protective cover for an endoscope of the present invention, the first locking portion to the second locking portion of the covering tube are provided.
Since the natural length up to the locking portion is shorter than the length between the locking positions of the endoscope locked by the first locking portion and the second locking portion,
When the endoscope is attached, the tip of the endoscope protective cover pushes against the tip of the endoscope, and there is an effect that the predetermined position can be held even when the endoscope is bent.

[Brief description of 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 of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram showing a configuration of a second modification of the rigid portion in FIG.

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

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

6 is a cross-sectional view showing the configuration of the image guide of FIG.

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 protrusion

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A coating tube for covering the insertion portion of an endoscope having an insertion portion to be inserted into a lumen is provided, wherein the coating tube has a distal end side at least from the distal end of the coating tube to the endoscope. A first locking portion that locks the endoscope so that the tip of the mirror does not protrude, and locks the endoscope at the proximal end side of the insertion portion that is provided at the proximal end side of the covering tube. And a second locking portion, and at least a part of the coating tube between the first locking portion and the second locking portion is a deformable member that elastically deforms in the longitudinal direction of the coating tube. The natural length of the covering tube from the first locking portion to the second locking portion is the locking position of the endoscope locked by the first locking portion and the second locking portion. A protective cover for an endoscope characterized by being shorter than the length between.