High velocity tissue sample cutter

Abstract

Samples of tissue are cleanly severed from locations deep within the body of a patient. A catheter has a catheter body constructed for placement through a narrow passageway and includes at its distal portion a cutter. The cutter includes a moveable cutting member that can be controllably actuated to sever the tissue sample from the location deep within the body. A firing mechanism is provided at a proximal end of the catheter. The firing mechanism includes, for example, a moveable actuating element connected to the cutting member and a preaccelerator element. The preaccelerator element is accelerated to high speed before transferring force to the actuating element to cause the actuating element to accelerate to rapidly actuate the moveable cutting member and cleanly cut the sample. The cutting element may be a jaw-form that has sharp end cutting edges and is constructed to provide shearing action.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.