US 4,239,040 AGranted

Capsule for medical use

AssigneeKabushiki Kaisha Daini Seikosha

InventorsTakeshi Hosoya, Fumihiro Tanaka, Kazuo Noguchi

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Abstract

A capsule for discharging drugs into a live body or collecting samples from the body comprises an external cylinder having slidably mounted therein an internal cylinder. The internal cylinder is retained by a meltable thread at one end of the external cylinder against the biasing force of a compression spring and upon melting of the thread, the spring effects sliding of the internal cylinder to the other end of the external cylinder and during this sliding movement, a drug is pushed out of the external cylinder ahead of the moving internal cylinder or a body sample is withdrawn into the external cylinder behind the moving internal cylinder. An electric circuit including a tunable receiver responds to an externally transmitted electric signal to energize a heater for melting the thread to thereby effect sliding movement of the internal cylinder at the desired time.

Claims9

Dependent claims

A capsule for medical use comprising:

a cylindrical body frame having a cylindrical stepped portion;
an external cylinder mounted on an end portion of said cylindrical body frame and having at least one through hole extending through a wall portion thereof;
a recovery cylinder mounted for sliding movement from one position to another position within said external cylinder and having at least one through hole extending through a wall portion thereof and capable of communicating with said through hole of said external cylinder during sliding movement of said recovery cylinder in said external cylinder;
biasing means for exerting a biasing force on said recovery cylinder tending to slidably move the same along said external cylinder from said one position to said another position;
actuatable retaining means for releasably retaining said recovery cylinder at said one position within said external cylinder against said biasing force and operative when actuated for releasing said recovery cylinder whereby said biasing force effects sliding movement of said recovery cylinder to said another position;
an electric switching circuit including receiving means for switching on the switching circuit when an externally transmitted instructing electric signal is received by said receiving means to actuate said retaining means to thereby release said recovery cylinder;
and means for supplying electric power to said switching circuit to enable operation of said switching circuit;
said recovery cylinder including two axially spaced chambers one of which surrounds said cylindrical stepped portion of said cylindrical body frame when said recovery cylinder is in said one position, and means for hermetically separating said one of said two chambers from the other and being disposed within said other of said two chambers;
said retaining means comprising a thread hanger removably fixed and inserted into said cylindrical stepped portion of said body frame, and a thread coacting with said thread hanger for retaining said recovery cylinder at said one position against said biasing force, said thread extending over said thread hanger and having its ends secured in place by said means for hermetically separating said one of said two chambers from the other and being tensioned by said biasing means;
said receiving means including a heating device for heat-cutting said thread in response to the instructing electric signal thereby releasing said recovery cylinder whereby said biasing means effects sliding movement of said recovery cylinder to said another position and during such sliding movement a sample to be collected flows through the communicating through holes of said recovery cylinder and said external cylinder into the empty space formed behind the moving recovery cylinder.

7 more elements

A capsule for medical use comprising:

a cylindrical body frame;
an external cylinder mounted on an end portion of said cylindrical body frame and having at least one through hole extending through a wall portion thereof;
a recovery cylinder mounted for sliding movement from one position to another position within said external cylinder and having at least one through hole extending through a wall portion thereof and capable of communicating with said through hole of said external cylinder during sliding movement of said recovery cylinder in said external cylinder;
biasing means for exerting a biasing force on said recovery cylinder tending to slidably move the same along said external cylinder from said one position to said another position;
actuatable retaining means for releasably retaining said recovery cylinder at said one position within said external cylinder against said biasing force and operative when actuated for releasing said recovery cylinder whereby said biasing force effects sliding movement of said recovery cylinder to said another position;
an electric switching circuit including receiving means for switching on the switching circuit when an externally transmitted instructing electric signal is received by said receiving means to actuate said retaining means to thereby release said recovery cylinder;
means for supplying electric power to said switching circuit to enable operation of said switching circuit;
a drug packed in the empty space defined in the internal portion of said external cylinder;
and a sealing plug for closing said through hole of said external cylinder.

6 more elements

A capsule for use in discharging drugs into or collecting samples from a live body comprising:

an elongate hollow housing;
a movable member mounted within said housing for sliding movement therealong from an initial position to a final position and dividing the interior of said housing into a drug storage space at the forward side of said movable member and a sample collecting space at the rearward side of said movable member;
means for communicating at least one of said drug storage and sample collecting spaces to the exterior of said housing;
biasing means for exerting a biasing force on said movable member biasing said movable member toward its final position;
actuatable retaining means for releasably retaining said movable member in its initial position against the biasing force exerted by said biasing means and operative when actuated for releasing said movable member;
and electric circuit means including a tuner circuit responsive to an externally transmitted signal of a predetermined frequency for effecting actuation of said retaining means thereby releasing said movable member to undergo sliding movement toward said final position by said biasing means;
whereby drugs stored in said drug storage space can be pushed out of said housing into the live body ahead of the sliding movable member or samples from the live body can be withdrawn into said housing in said sample collecting space behind the sliding movable member.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.