Design of a mechanical clutch-based needle-insertion device

Abstract

Insertion of trocars, needles, and catheters into unintended tissues or tissue compartments results in hundreds of thousands of complications annually. Current methods for blood vessel cannulation or epidural, chest tube, and initial trocar placement often involve the blind pass of a needle through several layers of tissue and generally rely on distinguishable anatomic landmarks and a high degree of clinical skill. To address this simply and without the use of electronics, a purely mechanical clutch system was developed for use in medical devices that access tissue and tissue compartments. This clutch utilizes the surface contact of a buckled filament inside an S-shaped tube to transmit force from the filament (catheter/guide wire) to the tube (needle). Upon encountering sufficient resistance at the tip, such as dense tissue, the catheter buckles and locks within the tube, causing the filament and needle to advance as one. When the needle reaches the target tissue or fluid-filled cavity, the filament unlocks and slides freely into the target region while the needle remains stationary. A similar locking phenomenon has long been observed in drill strings inside drill shafts used by the oil-drilling industry, and oil industry models were adapted to describe the motion of this clutch system. A predictive analytical model was generated and validated with empirical data and used to develop prototypes of a complete device then tested in vitro on muscle tissue and in vivo on a porcine laparoscopic model with promising results.catheter ͉ helical-buckling ͉ trocar

Position Control of Motion Compensation Cardiac Catheters

“…Systems with larger gaps experience decreased friction forces, which in turn reduce the forces that drive the guidewire to conform to the inner wall of the sheath. An analysis of compliant guidewires buckling inside rigid sheaths was examined in [22], which could be extended to account for the sheath deformation observed here.…”

Design and control of motion compensation cardiac catheters

“…Systems with larger gaps experience decreased friction forces, which in turn reduce the forces that drive the guidewire to conform to the inner wall of the sheath. A detailed analysis of compliant guidewires buckling inside rigid sheaths was examined in [18], which could be extended to account for the sheath deformation seen here.…”

Extending the Reach of a Rod Injected Into a Cylinder Through Axial Rotation

“…Buckling of a slender rod within a cylindrical constraint is observed across a variety of systems and length scales, including vascular catheters [1], silicon nanorods confined within a channel [2], and plant roots penetrating into soil [3]. At the kilometer scale, coiled tubing is commonly used in the oil and gas industries for cleaning, damage repair, and monitoring operations for servicing previously drilled wellbores [4,5].…”