Steerable Catheters using Micro-fabricated Dielectric Elastomer Actuators

使用微加工介电弹性体致动器的可操纵导管

• 批准号: 571980-2022
• 负责人: Duduta, MihaiM
• 金额: $ 1.09万
• 依托单位: University of Toronto
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Idea to Innovation
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=759557
• 关键词: Steerable; Catheters; using; Micro; fabricated

Catheters are medical devices widely used to access body cavities, ducts, or vessels. Depending on the material and manufacturing method, catheters have cardiovascular, urological, gastrointestinal, neurovascular, and ophthalmic applications. Particularly for vascular interventions, the navigation of a catheter in tandem with a guidewire to the desired location is the most time consuming and delicate part of the process. The process of sliding catheters and guidewires past each other and reshaping the tip of the wire outside the patient's body can take minutes or up to hours, depending on the type of intervention. Any delays in treatment can be very detrimental to patient outcomes, especially where the interventionist aims to perform a thrombectomy (i.e., remove a clot from a blocked vessel in the brain); the time to reach the clot is critical. Medical and engineering researchers have generally taken the same approach to reduce navigation time: make the catheter or guide wire steerable. Approaches include pull wire mechanisms, magnetic controlled tips, and smart materials that actuate to bend the tip. The limitations of these systems fall into two categories: unfavorable scaling or cumbersome implementation. We propose a new microfabrication paradigm to create dielectric elastomers as artificial muscles that can be attached to micro-catheters to enable steering in tortuous and narrow vessels. Fundamentally the project spans disciplines: using manufacturing and materials engineering to create robotic elements to power medical devices for interventional radiology. It is anticipated that the technology will represent an important enhancement to steerable catheters/micro-catheters that are used for cardiovascular, urological, gastrointestinal, neurovascular, and ophthalmic applications. A key question for the market assessment will be to confirm the medical devices/medical procedures that would benefit the most from the subject technology in terms of desired scale and features.

导管是广泛用于接触体腔、导管或血管的医疗设备。根据材料和制造方法的不同，导管可用于心血管、泌尿外科、胃肠、神经血管和眼科等领域。尤其是对于血管介入，将导管与导丝一起导航到所需位置是这一过程中最耗时和最微妙的部分。根据干预类型的不同，将导管和导丝相互滑动并在患者身体外重塑导丝尖端的过程可能需要几分钟或长达数小时。治疗的任何延误都可能对患者的预后造成非常不利的影响，特别是当干预者的目标是进行血栓切除术(即从大脑中堵塞的血管中取出血栓)；到达血栓的时间至关重要。医学和工程研究人员普遍采取了相同的方法来缩短导航时间：使导尿管或导丝可控。方法包括拉线机制，磁控尖端，以及启动以弯曲尖端的智能材料。这些系统的局限性分为两类：不利于扩展或实现繁琐。我们提出了一种新的微制造范例，以创造介电弹性体作为人造肌肉，可以连接到微导管上，使其能够在弯曲和狭窄的血管中进行操纵。从根本上说，该项目跨越了多个学科：使用制造和材料工程来创造机器人元件，为介入放射学的医疗设备提供动力。预计这项技术将是对心血管、泌尿外科、胃肠、神经血管和眼科应用的可控导管/微导管的重要改进。市场评估的一个关键问题将是确定在所需的规模和功能方面最能从主题技术中获益的医疗器械/医疗程序。