Catheter and method of fluid removal from a body cavity

#The present invention relates to devices that permit repeated access to the peritoneal or thoracic cavities. More particularly, the invention relates to a peritoneal and thoracic cavity port catheter.

#Certain medical conditions (e.g., ovarian cancer) are treated by infusing a body cavity with a fluid medical preparation through a catheter with one or more infusion holes at a distal end thereof and with an access port or other such device at a proximal end thereof.

#In the case of ovarian cancer, the radioactive isotope P32 is administered in a fluid medium infused into the peritoneal cavity, in which the patient's ovaries are located. When ovarian cancer metastasizes or spreads from the ovaries, the cancer cells simply fall off of the ovaries and spread around the peritoneal cavity, but generally do not enter the blood stream. Therefore, a therapy, which floods the peritoneal cavity with P32, is effective, without unnecessarily exposing the patient to radioactivity in undesired areas. However, ovarian cancer cells, having somewhat defective cell membranes, leak fluids, called ascites, into the peritoneal cavity. Treatment of ovarian cancer includes removal of this fluid. The procedure for doing so typically uses the same catheter through which the infusion is performed, and takes about four hours, requiring hospitalization, and is performed about once a week.

#In the figures, in which like reference designations indicate like elements:

#FIG. 1 is a top view of a catheter and port embodying aspects of the invention;

#FIG. 2 is a cross sectional detail view of the catheter of FIG. 1, taken along line 1-1;

#In accordance with some embodiments of the present invention, a method and apparatus is provided for removal of fluids from a patient's body, for example draining fluids from a body cavity between multiple drug infusion operations (e.g., during the entire duration of treatment).

#Embodiments of aspects of the invention may include a catheter or a catheterless plug having a catheter body and an access port, and a method of extracting fluid from a body cavity. As explained more fully below, the catheterless plug has a body resembling a catheter body, but which can comprise a fully integrated unit. References below to the catheter body apply to the body of the catheterless plug, as well, except where differences are explicitly mentioned.

#The catheter body should preferably have a shape that is unlikely to undesirably puncture or injure tissue or organs encountered in or about the body cavity to be drained. The shape of the catheter body, together with the placement of one or more fluid extraction holes in a wall of the catheter body should preferably be such as to avoid the formation of pockets (referred to by those skilled in this art as loculation) and/or to avoid creating a fluid flow that would cause migration of the catheter body, or of tissue or debris, that could block the extraction holes. For example, the extraction holes can be positioned in a protected region of the catheter body, as described below.