Catheter and method for manufacturing same

Abstract

A catheter includes a cylindrical distal member connected to a distal end part of a catheter body, and the distal member has a bending portion located distal to a most distal end part of the catheter body, the bending portion being a section that bends when an external force in a bending direction is applied to a distal end part of the distal member with the distal end part of the catheter body being fixed. The Young's modulus of the bending portion is smaller than the Young's modulus of the proximal end part of the distal member. A method for manufacturing the catheter includes performing a heat treatment for fusing the proximal end part of the distal member to the catheter body while adjusting a thermal load on an axially intermediate part of the distal member to be smaller than a thermal load on the proximal end part.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.