I don't want to spoil the surprise, there's a ton of weird gadgets at this Tokyo tech showcase, from robot dogs to catheters with shape memory.
Other types of balloons included double balloon catheter and gourd shape balloon.
Active catheters with local shape memory alloy (SMA) actuation can potentially provide the desired manipulation of a catheter tip, but hysteresis makes it difficult to control the actuators.
The guiding balloon catheter was pre-shaped so that it could be easily placed on the targeted wall segment; an 'S'- or 'crank'-configuration was used for anterior, apical, and inferior wall segments, and a 'J'-configuration for the lateral wall segment.
Our study found three epidural catheters curled into a circle in 3 cases, with one catheter curled into the shape of a "9".
Most of these strategies involve delivering various types of energy just proximal to the insertion of the pulmonary veins into the left atrium using conventional, irrigated tip, circular, and balloon shaped catheters.
Even more compelling is the story of Beth Bradley, a radio journalist in Connecticut who had a mild heart attack but ended up in far worse shape after a catheter accidentally tore an artery.
The model is able to deform the catheter in any free-state shape within the volume enclosure and is independent of local motion increment.
During the pretreatment angiography, the hepatic arterial vasculature was selectively catheterized by femoral approach with a standard 5F guiding catheter (Celiac, Cobra or Simmons shape), 2.7F Progreat microcatheter (Terumo, Leuven, Belgium), and a 0.014-inch 0.014-inchuide wire (BosTransendntific, Natick, MA, USA).
This new ergonomic probe was designed based on electrostatically driven optical fibers, and packaged into a catheter probe in the form factor of clinically accepted Bayonet shaped neurosurgical probes.
