Artificial Hand's Seeing Fingers: A New Device for Ingested Foreign Bodies Remova

说明（由申请人提供）：食物丸误食和异物嵌塞现象频繁发生，严重威胁人体健康。仅在美国，每年就有大约1500人因吞食异物而死亡，其中儿童约占摄入异物的80%。其他风险增加的群体包括囚犯、精神病患者和老年人，尤其是那些认知功能下降、中风后吞咽受损或假牙不合适的人。刚性和柔性内窥镜，配合各种钳子和陷阱等配件，是清除这些影响食管异物的最常用技术。然而，由于抓握工具缺乏可靠性和灵活性，使得这一过程既耗时又有风险。通常，栓剂和异物移除手术会导致更具侵入性的外科手术，甚至导致死亡，对于吞下硬币或电池的孩子来说，这是一个特别悲惨的结果，这是儿科梗阻病例中最常见的事件。这也是最困难的情况，因为收缩的食道用很大的力量支撑着物体。需要给镊子的尖头施加力量来克服这些力；目前还没有技术提供这种力量。在取出物体和食道松弛的过程中，没有固定住物体，往往会导致物体进入气管，导致死亡。因此，参与这些手术的医生需要一种能够模仿人类手指的工具，以提供最大程度的关节。为了满足这些需求，智能光学系统公司（Intelligent Optical Systems， IOS）提出开发一种用于摄入异物去除的新设备，特别关注最难和最不成功的手术，如硬币和纽扣电池的取出。基于IOS公司的人工手（AH）在第一阶段取得的巨大成功，第二阶段的研究将集中于开发、设计和测试一种新型内窥镜，这种内窥镜具有独特的远端尖端附件，可以固定物体，使其完全安全地从患者身上移除。其中一个附件，AH的可视手指，将使用一对强大的气动控制手指，将物体周围的网传送并固定。另一个附件，AH的视觉抓取器，将使用两个或三个手指的手，并将提供分心和去除丸。所有看到手指和看到抓取手指都将具有自主照明和可视化通道。IOS将分阶段开发AH的Seeing Fingers和Seeing Grabber。IOS的合作伙伴、加州大学洛杉矶分校的MEMS微制造实验室将帮助开发这些手指；光学通道和控制将在IOS开发。完成这一步后，IOS将组装远端操作部件，生成操作方案，评估程序，并在台式实验中进行改进。然后，视觉捕捉器原型将被制造和测试。最后，“看得见的手指”将被设计、制造、测试，并提交给潜在的战略合作伙伴。IOS提出的“看到手指”和“看到抓取器”系统将是对现有工具的巨大改进，为医生提供了一种救命工具。公共卫生相关性：异物摄入是世界范围内的一个常见问题，特别是在儿科人群中，每年发生超过10万例。内窥镜技术是目前清除摄入异物的黄金标准，但效率低下且不安全，经常导致死亡。另一种更安全的设备是IOS公司的“看得见的手指”（Artificial Hand’s Seeing Fingers），它使用两只有手指的手来固定被困物体，比目前的方法更安全，从而挽救了许多生命。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Food bolus ingestion and foreign body impaction occur frequently and are serious threats to human health. In the United States alone, approximately 1,500 people die each year after swallowing foreign bodies, with children accounting for about 80% of foreign body ingestions. Other groups at increased risk include prisoners, psychiatric patients, and the elderly, especially those who have decreased cognitive function, impaired swallowing after a stroke, or poorly fitting dentures. Rigid and flexible endoscopy, with accessories such as various forceps and snares, is the most common technique for removing these impacted esophageal foreign bodies. Lack of reliability and flexibility of grasping tools, however, make the procedure time-consuming and risky. Often bolus and foreign body removal procedures lead to more invasive surgical procedures and even death, an especially tragic result for a child who has swallowed a coin or battery, the most common event in pediatric cases of obstruction. It is also the most difficult scenario because the contracted esophagus holds the object with substantial force. Power needs to be applied to the prongs of the forceps to overcome these forces; no current technology provides this force. Lack of a secure hold on the object as it is being removed and as the esophagus relaxes often causes the object to go into the trachea, resulting in death. Therefore, physicians involved in these procedures need a tool that can mimic human fingers, which provide maximum articulation. To address these needs, Intelligent Optical Systems (IOS) proposes to develop a new device for ingested foreign body removal, specifically focusing on the withdrawal of the most difficult and least successful procedures, such as coins and button batteries. Based on the highly successful Phase I results of IOS' Artificial Hand (AH), Phase II research will focus on developing, engineering, and testing a novel endoscope with unique distal end tips attachments that will secure the object, allowing its complete and safe removal from the patient. One attachment, the AH's Seeing Fingers, will use a pair of strong pneumatically controlled fingers that will deliver and secure a net around the object. Another attachment, the AH's Seeing Grabber, will use 2 two- or three-finger hands, and will provide distraction and removal of bolus. All Seeing Fingers and Seeing Grabber fingers will have autonomous illumination and visualization channels. IOS will develop the AH's Seeing Fingers and Seeing Grabber in stages. The MEMS microfabrication lab at University of California, Los Angeles, IOS's collaborator, will help to develop the fingers; the optical channels and controls will be developed at IOS. After completion of this step, IOS will assemble the distal manipulating parts, generate the manipulation protocol, evaluate the procedure, and make improvements in the benchtop experiments. The Seeing Grabber prototype will then be fabricated and tested. Finally, the Seeing Fingers will be designed, fabricated, tested, and presented to a potential strategic partner. IOS' proposed Seeing Fingers and Seeing Grabber system will be a vast improvement over existing tools, providing a life-saving tool for physicians. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The ingestion of foreign bodies is a common problem worldwide, especially in the pediatric population, where more than 100,000 cases occur each year. The endoscopic technique, currently the gold standard for removing ingested foreign bodies, is inefficient and unsafe, often resulting in death. A safer device, IOS' Artificial Hand's Seeing Fingers, employs two hands with fingers and secures the trapped object, allowing safer removal than is currently available and saving many lives.