Methods for treating prostatitis
AssigneeACMI Corporation
InventorsIulian Cioanta, Richard Barry Klein, Jordon Dimitrakov
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Methods, systems, and computer program products for providing thermal therapies or internal thermal massage therapy for treating prostatitis by expanding and contracting a treatment balloon with inflation media and currently applying heat to a portion of the prostatic urethra.
Claims52
A method for treating prostatitis, comprising:
- positioning a transurethral catheter with a treatment balloon mounted thereon in the prostatic urethra of a subject;
- expanding the treatment balloon after the positioning step so that the expanded treatment balloon contacts prostatic tissue;
- internally massaging the prostate by altering the pressure in the expanded treatment balloon such that the expanded treatment balloon repetitively laterally expands and contracts a desired distance in the prostatic urethra;
- and
- concurrently heating the prostatic urethra during said massaging step to thereby treat the subject for prostatitis.
A method for treating prostatitis in a subject, comprising:
- (a) inserting a catheter with at least one expandable treatment balloon thereon into the urethra of a subject, the treatment balloon positioned to extend outwardly about the perimeter of a portion of the catheter;
- (b) heating fluid to a desired temperature;
- (c) directing heated fluid such that it travels captured through the catheter to the at least one expandable treatment balloon;
- (d) inflating the at least one treatment balloon responsive to the directing step, wherein, in position, the inflated treatment balloon takes on a radially expanded configuration and circumferentially contacts targeted tissue in the prostatic urethra;
- (e) internally massaging a portion of the prostatic urethra by repetitively altering the fluid pressure in the treatment balloon causing the treatment balloon to repetitively expand and contract a desired distance in response thereto;
- and
- (f) heating a targeted region in the prostatic urethra to a temperature of between about 40-47° C. for a desired treatment time of at least 20 minutes concurrently with said massaging step thereby performing a thermal massage of the prostate.
A set of prostatitis treatment catheters having expandable treatment balloons, the treatment balloons configured on a flexible catheter sized and configured to be inserted into the male urethra, wherein said treatment balloons are sized in 0.5 cm increments from about 1 cm to 6 cm such that, in operation, a selected treatment balloon resides above the verumontanum of the subject in the prostatic urethra.
A computer program product for controlling an internally delivered thermal massage treatment for prostatitis, the thermal massage treatment being provided by a closed loop system having a heater, a pump, and a trans-lumenal catheter configured and sized to be inserted through the male urethra and having an outwardly expandable treatment balloon thereon and configured, in operation, to repetitively expand and contract to provide a massage to the tissue located proximate thereto while the catheter circulates heated fluid via the expandable treatment balloon, the computer program product comprising:
- a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied in said medium, said computer-readable program code comprising:
- computer readable program code for controlling the temperature of fluid circulating in the catheter so that the temperature of the fluid entering the catheter to travel to the expandable treatment balloon is between about 40-47° C.;
- and
- computer readable program code for timing the duration of the thermal massage treatment so that the treatment lasts from about 20 minutes to 1 hour.
A method for treating prostatitis, comprising:
- (a) inserting a catheter with at least one expandable treatment balloon thereon into the urethra of a subject, the treatment balloon positioned to extend outwardly about the perimeter of a portion of the catheter;
- (b) heating fluid to a desired temperature;
- (c) directing heated fluid such that it travels captured through the catheter to the at least one expandable treatment balloon;
- (d) inflating the at least one treatment balloon responsive to the directing step, wherein, in position, the inflated treatment balloon takes on a radially expanded configuration and circumferentially contacts targeted tissue in the prostatic urethra;
- and
- (e) heating a targeted region in the prostatic urethra to a temperature of between about 40-47° C. for a desired treatment time of at least 20 minutes thereby administering a thermal therapy to the prostate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.