Safety apparatus for surgical occluding and cutting device
AssigneeUnited States Surgical Corporation
InventorJames W. Poirier
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A safety mechanism for use in apparatus which applies two spaced apart surgical clips to body tissue and cuts the tissue between the clips. The safety mechanism prevents the tissue from being cut if two clips are not properly positioned in the apparatus for application to the tissue.
Claims15
In a surgical instrument for ligating and dividing an organic structure, said instrument having two spaced apart channels, each adapted to dispense a ligature from a dispensing location thereon, and cutting means intermediate said channels, the improvement comprising safety means operatively connected to both of said channels for detecting the presence or absence of a ligature at the dispensing location of each of said channels, said safety means being directly engageable with said cutting means for allowing cutting of the organic structure only when the safety means detects a ligature at the dispensing location of each of said channels.
Misfeed detection apparatus for use in a surgical instrument adapted to dispense ligatures and divide tissue, the surgical instrument containing ligatures and having a longitudinal axis, two spaced apart channels each containing a respective portion of said ligatures and having a dispensing location from which said ligatures are dispensed, and a knife blade mounted intermediate said channels for movement along the longitudinal axis of the instrument, the improvement comprising:
- (a) a first arm operatively connected to the dispensing location of the first of the channels, said first arm being contacted and deflected by a ligature disposed at the dispensing location of the first channel;
- (b) a second arm operatively connected to the dispensing location of the second of the channels, said second arm being contacted and deflected by a ligature disposed at the dispensing location of the second channel;
- (c) a first flag mounted on the first arm disposed directly in the path of the knife blade and substantially perpendicular thereto unless the first arm is deflected by a ligature in the first channel so that the absence of a ligature in the first channel results in the disabling of the knife blade;
- and
- (d) a second flag mounted on the second arm disposed directly in the path of the knife blade and substantially perpendicular thereto unless the second arm is deflected by a ligature in the second channel so that the absence of a ligature in the second channel results in the disabling of the knife blade.
In a surgical occluding and cutting instrument having ligature storage and dispensing means, movable tissue cutting means for dividing body tissue and tissue restraining means operatively connected to the cutting means, a safety device comprising:
- (a) ligature detecting means operatively connected to said ligature storage and dispensing means for determining whether a ligature is present therein;
- and
- (b) movable interposer means operatively connected to said ligature detecting means and disposed intermediate said tissue restraining means and said cutting means for allowing movement thereof only when a ligature is detected in said ligature storage and dispensing means.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.