JPH11221286A - Medical tube - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To make a medical tube be excellent in pushability, trackability, and crossability and to enable to be easily inserted into a complicatedly bent vascular such as a blood vessel, etc., by making the section of the medical tube into a flattened shape. CONSTITUTION: A heat catheter 1 in the example is inserted into a heart, for instance, to be used for enamining the function of the heart and is made into a tube made of flexible plastic with the section in a flattened shape. The tube has prescribed length and a center hole with almost circular section at the central part for injecting a contract medium, and the tip end part 3 is formed into a taper so as to make insertion easier and not to harm a blood vessel. Since the center hole is circular in contrast with the ellipse shape of the outer shape, a thick wall part is formed in the major axis direction of the ellipse to make the tube firm and to obtain restoring force to enable to secure pushability. Since a thin wall part 5 is made in the mirror axis direction, flexibility can be obtained.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a medical tube used for examining, diagnosing, treating, etc., a lesion occurring in a blood vessel.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, in the medical field, the digestive tract,
In examining, diagnosing, and treating a lesion that has occurred in a body lumen (vascular vessel) such as a blood vessel, a surgical tube, that is, a method of directly incising the lesion, is not used as much as possible, and a medical tube is used. Many methods have been adopted in which a tube is inserted into a lumen to reach a lesion.

[0003] For example, a medical tube is used to inject a drug into a lesion, or a medical tube having a shaver or the like attached to the distal end thereof is used to remove or resect the lesion.
Removing gallstones or observing the inside of the digestive tract with an endoscope that contains an image-receiving optical lens and a light-guiding optical fiber in a medical tube has already become a common treatment and diagnostic practice. doing.

In recent years, such medical tubing has also been used for diagnosis and treatment of the circulatory system and the like, that is, injection of a contrast agent, measurement of blood pressure, treatment of vascular stenosis caused by accumulation of atheroma on the inner wall of a blood vessel, and the like. Is used. In particular, the treatment of vascular stenosis is conventionally performed by a large-scale operation called a bypass operation, and it is difficult to perform the operation technique and also imposes a pain on the patient himself, but by using a medical tube, The treatment can be performed with a relatively simple technique without substantially injuring the human body.

[0005] For example, atheroma is removed by a medical tube having a shaver attached to the tip.
Alternatively, a method of evaporating atheroma using a medical tube containing an optical fiber for guiding laser light is known. Furthermore, a method has been proposed in which a balloon catheter with a thin balloon is inserted into a medical tube inserted into a blood vessel to reach the atheroma, and the stenotic vessel lumen is expanded by expanding the balloon catheter. I have.

[0006]

The above inspection,
As a medical tube used in diagnosis and treatment, the stiffness can be pushed in strongly (pushability, push-ability), the operation at hand of the operator is transmitted to the distal end, and the angle of the distal end is free. (Track ability, track-a
(crossability) and cross-ability must be able to pass through the vessel smoothly. In particular, when inserted into a complicatedly bent vessel such as a blood vessel, the above performance is strictly required.

[0007] Here, the medical tubing conventionally used generally has a substantially circular cross section. In order to strengthen the stiffness of such a tube having a substantially circular cross section, the tube is made thicker. It is necessary to make itself thicker.

However, if the tube having a substantially circular cross section is simply made thicker or the tube itself is made thicker, the flexibility becomes insufficient and the operation becomes difficult. In addition, smooth passage through the vessel is lost, and it is particularly difficult to pass through a narrow portion having a lesion. The passability is improved by making the tube thinner. However, when the tube is made thinner, the stiffness becomes weaker and the restoring force becomes weaker, and the pushability and the trackability deteriorate.

As described above, it is difficult for a tube having a substantially circular cross section to achieve both pushability, trackability, and crossability, so that satisfactory performance cannot be obtained. In addition, insert a wire mesh into the tube to improve pushability, apply a coating agent around the tube, precede the tube with the guide wire at the time of insertion, insert it into the vessel through the wire, etc. A method has been proposed,
These measures are secondary and cannot improve the intrinsic performance of the tube.

Therefore, the present invention has been proposed in view of such a conventional situation, and has a pushability,
An object of the present invention is to provide a medical tube excellent in both track ability and cross ability.

[0011]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, a medical tube according to the present invention is characterized in that its cross section is flat.

[0012]

The medical tube is used for examination, diagnosis, and treatment of a lesion in a vessel. The medical tube is inserted into a vessel having a lesion, and the tip reaches the lesion. By transmitting the operation at hand to the distal end, a medical effect is exhibited. Therefore, in order to perform more accurate medical treatment with such a medical tube, the medical tube must be strong enough to be pushed in during insertion into a vessel, and the operation at the operator's hand should be performed at the distal end. It is necessary to be able to freely change the angle of the distal end portion and to smoothly pass through the blood vessel, that is, push ability, track ability, and cross ability.

The flat-shaped medical tube has a strong stiffness, a large strength, and excellent flexibility, so that the operation at hand of the operator can be accurately transmitted to the distal end. In addition, it smoothly passes through a vessel having a lesion. That is, the push ability, the track ability, and the cross ability are all excellent.

[0014]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment in which the present invention is applied to a heart catheter will be described below.

The heart catheter 1 is inserted into, for example, a vein or an artery into an atrium or a ventricle of the heart, and is used for examining the function of the heart. In the present embodiment, the heart catheter 1 is shown in FIGS. As described above, the tube is made of a soft plastic having a flat cross section (in this example, a substantially elliptical cross section). A center hole 2 having a predetermined length and a substantially circular cross section for injecting a contrast agent or the like is provided at a central portion. The tip 3 is tapered to facilitate insertion and not to damage the blood vessel.

In the heart catheter 1 having such a shape,
Since the outer shape is elliptical while the center hole is circular, the thick part 4 is formed in the major axis direction of the ellipse (the X-axis direction in FIG. 2) to increase the stiffness and restore. Power is obtained, and the above-mentioned push ability can be secured. Further, flexibility is obtained by setting the thin portion 5 in the short axis direction (Y axis direction in FIG. 2).
That is, since it is selectively bent in the short-axis direction (Y-axis direction), the operation at the surgeon's hand can be transmitted to the distal end portion 3 by controlling the insertion direction, and the track ability and the cross ability are also improved. Can be secured.

Further, as shown in FIG. 3, the blood vessel 31 having the lesion 32 usually has a luminal cross-sectional shape close to a flat shape. Therefore, in the case of a tube having a true circular cross section, insertion is difficult, but the heart catheter 1 having a flat cross section is operated by operating the short axis direction so as to be the narrowest part direction of the blood vessel 31. Such a lesion 3
2 can be smoothly inserted into the blood vessel 31 having the same.

In the heart catheter 1, as shown in FIG. 4, a hole 41 such as an air hole or a lead hole through which a lead wire or the like is inserted is formed in the thick portion 4 in the X-axis direction according to the application. You may make it. In this case, if the holes 41 are arranged on the long axis with the center hole 2 as the center, the operation at hand of the surgeon is uniformly transmitted to the entire tube, and the operability is improved.

In order to supply a contrast agent to, for example, the heart by using such a heart catheter 1, the heart catheter 1 is inserted from, for example, a blood vessel at a stomach or elbow. At this time, the heart catheter 1 smoothly passes through the blood vessel and easily reaches the heart by the operation of the operator at hand. Then, when reaching the heart, a contrast agent is injected into a medical tube. As a result, the contrast agent is supplied to the target site of the heart.

The embodiments of the present invention have been described above. However, the present invention is not limited to the heart catheter, but can be applied to various medical tubes such as a balloon catheter and an endoscope tube.

[0021]

As is clear from the above description, since the medical tube of the present invention has a flat cross section, it has excellent pushability, trackability, and crossability. Therefore,
ADVANTAGE OF THE INVENTION According to this invention, it can be easily inserted also into a complicatedly bent blood vessel, such as a blood vessel, and the medical tube with a wide application range can be obtained.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an example of a medical tube of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a sectional view showing an example of the medical tube of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view showing a state of a medical tube inserted into a vessel having a lesion.

FIG. 4 is a sectional view showing another example of the medical tube of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1. Heart catheter 2. Center hole

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A medical tube having a flat cross section.