Apparatus and methods for treating excess intraocular fluid
AssigneeEcole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
InventorsStephane Bigler, Nikolaos Stergiopulos
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Abstract
An ocular drainage system is provided for treating diseases that produce elevated intraocular pressures, such as glaucoma, wherein the system includes an implantable device and an external control unit, the implantable device includes a non-invasively adjustable valve featuring at least one deformable tube and a disk rotatably mounted within a housing, such that rotation of the disk using the external control unit causes the disk to apply a selected amount of compression to the deformable tube, thereby adjusting the fluidic resistance of the deformable tube and regulating the intraocular pressure.
Claims19
A method for treating excess fluid pressure within an eye, the method comprising:
- implanting an inlet catheter in the eye such that an inlet end of the inlet catheter is in fluid communication with an anterior chamber of the eye;
- implanting an outlet catheter in the eye, such that an outlet end of the outlet catheter is in fluid communication with a space beneath tissue of the eye;
- implanting an implantable device under a conjunctiva of the eye such that the implantable device is under a scleral flap or above a scleral surface of the eye, the implantable device comprising a fluidic channel extending between and in fluid communication with the inlet catheter and the outlet catheter;
- and
- draining aqueous humor from the anterior chamber of the eye through the inlet catheter, the fluidic channel of the implantable device, and the outlet catheter to the space beneath tissue of the eye responsive to a pressure differential across the inlet catheter and the outlet catheter to thereby maintain fluid pressure within the eye within a predetermined range,
- wherein a rate of drainage through the implantable device is based on a fluidic resistance of the fluidic channel of the implantable device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.