Support arm for cardiac surgery
AssigneeGenesee Biomedical, Inc.
InventorsHieu Cong Nguyen, John Thomas Matthew Wright, David William Skinkle
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A support arm assembly for assisting in the performance of cardiac surgery has an articulated arm movable axially of a support base and rotatable relative to the support base. A distal end of the articulated arm receives a contact member and the contact member is moveable relative to the distal end. A surgeon may configure the support arm assembly to contact a desired portion of a heart and fix the articulated arm, its axial position, its rotated position and the orientation of the contact member with a single control.
Claims18
A support arm assembly for assisting in the performance of cardiac surgery comprising:
- an articulated support arm comprising a plurality of links;
- a contact member for bearing on the surface of a heart;
- a socket housing at a distal end of the support arm;
- a ball connected to the contact member, the ball being received in the socket housing to enable the contact member to assume a select orientation relative to the support arm;
- a cable extending between the socket housing and a proximal end of the support arm, the cable being operatively associated with the links of the articulated support arm and the socket housing so that when tensioned the cable compresses the links to fix a select configuration of the support arm and compresses the socket housing against the ball to fix a select orientation of the contact member relative to the support arm;
- tensioning means operatively associated with the cable for tensioning the cable;
- and
- clutch means operatively associated with the tensioning means for preventing application of greater than a select tensile force to the cable.
A support arm assembly for assisting in the performance of cardiac surgery comprising:
- a base including means for fixed attachment to a support;
- an articulated support arm;
- a contact member for bearing on the surface of the heart operatively associated with a distal end of the support arm;
- and
- an axial clamp extending from the base and axially receiving the articulated support arm, the axial clamp having a locked position preventing axial movement of the support arm relative to the axial clamp and an unlocked position enabling axial movement of the support arm relative to the axial clamp, whereby the effective length to the distal end of the support arm relative to the base can be varied.
A method for performing a surgical procedure on a heart of a patient comprising the steps of:
- a) making an incision in the patient's chest;
- b) inserting a retractor into the incision and securing the retractor in an open position to provide access to the heart;
- c) providing an articulated arm having proximal and a distal end;
- d) attaching the articulated arm to the retractor so that the articulated arm is movable axially relative to the retractor;
- c) releasably attaching an interchangeable contact member to the distal end of the articulated arm;
- d) moving the articulated arm axially relative to the retractor and configuring the articulated arm as desired to bring the contact member into contact with a desired portion of the heart;
- and
- e) fixing the articulated arm axially of the retractor and fixing the configuration of the support arm to exert and maintain a stabilizing force on the desired portion of the heart while performing the surgical procedure.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.