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US 6,141,576 AGranted
Intravascular sensing device
AssigneeCardima, Inc.
InventorsLaszlo Littmann, Gene Samson, Gabriel Vegh
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AssigneeCardima, Inc.
InventorsLaszlo Littmann, Gene Samson, Gabriel Vegh
Estimating the term…
Term ended 29 Jan 2013 (estimated)
A system for detecting electrical activity within a patient's heart comprising an elongated intravascular device, such as a catheter or guidewire, having at least one bipolar electrode pair on a distal section of the elongated device to intravascularly detect electrical activity within the patient's heart. The catheter or guidewire preferably has a tubular shaft formed of braided strands which include a plurality of insulated conductors which are electrically connected to the bipolar electrodes.
A method of intravascularly detecting from within a branch of a blood vessel of a patient's heart electrical signals emanating from outside of the branch of the blood vessel and within a wall of the patient's heart, comprising:
A method of intravascularly detecting from within a branch of a blood vessel of a patient's heart electrical signals emanating from outside of the branch of the blood vessel and within a wall of the patient's heart, comprising:
A method of intravascularly detecting from within a branch of a blood vessel of a patient's heart electrical signals emanating from outside of the branch of the blood vessel and within a wall of the patient's heart, comprising:
A method of intravascularly detecting from within a branch of a blood vessel of a patient's heart electrical signals emanating from outside of the branch of the blood vessel and within a wall of a patient's heart, comprising:
A method of detecting from within a branch of a blood vessel of a patient's heart electrical signals emanating from outside of the branch of the blood vessel and within a wall of a patient's heart, comprising:
A method of intravascularly detecting from within a branch of a blood vessel of a patient's heart electrical signals emanating from outside of the branch of the blood vessel and within a wall of a patient's heart, comprising:
A method of intravascularly detecting from within a branch of a blood vessel of a patient's heart electrical signals emanating from outside of the branch of the blood vessel and within a wall of a patient's heart, comprising:
A method of detecting from within a branch of a blood vessel of a patient's heart electrical signals emanating from outside of the branch of the blood vessel and within a wall of a patient's heart, comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
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For ligaturing or otherwise compressing tubular parts of the body, e.g. blood vessels or umbilical cord: occluding by internal devices, e.g.…
Detecting, measuring or recording for evaluating the cardiovascular system, e.g. pulse, heart rate, blood pressure or blood flow: evaluating blood…
Invasive: holders for multiple electrodes, e.g. electrode catheters for electrophysiological study [EPS]
Mounted on an invasive device: catheters
From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.
USPTO file history isn’t available for this patent, so only indexed dates are shown.
This invention generally relates to the detection of electrical activity or signals within a patient's heart and particularly for determining the source of signals causing arrhythmia.
Prior methods for treating a patient's arrhythmia include the use of antiarrhythmic drugs such as sodium and calcium channel blockers or drugs which reduce the Beta-adrenergic activity. Other methods include the surgically sectioning the origin of the signals causing the arrhythmia or the conducting pathway for such signals. More frequently, however, to terminate the arrhythmia, the heart tissue which causes the arrhythmia is destroyed by heat, e.g. applying a laser beam or radio frequency (RF) energy to a desired location on the patient's endocardium.
In the latter instance, the location of the site causing the arrhythmia must be accurately known in order to be able to contact the desired location with a tissue destroying device. A major problem of ablating the site of the origin of the signals or a conductive pathway is to accurately determine the site so that an excessive amount of good tissue is not destroyed along with the arrhythmogenic site to ensure that the arrhythmia does not return. For example, the average arrhythmogenic site consists of about 1.4 cm.sup.2 of endocardial tissue, whereas a re-entrant site might be much larger. RF ablation techniques produce lesions about 0.5 cm.sup.2 in diameter, so several lesions may have to be formed to completely ablate the area of interest. If the arrhythmogenic or re-entrant site is not accurately mapped, much good tissue surrounding the site will be unnecessarily destroyed.
FIG. 1 is an elevational view of a guidewire embodying features of the invention.
FIG. 2 is an enlarged longitudinal cross-sectional view of a distal portion of the guidewire shown in FIG. 1.
FIG. 3 is an enlarged longitudinal cross-sectional view of the distal portion of a guidewire similar to that shown in FIG. 2 but having a plurality of braided layers.
Reference is made to FIGS. 1-5 which schematically illustrate an embodiment of the invention wherein the elongated device 10 is the form of a guidewire. The elongated device 10 includes shaft 11 with a distal section 12 and a proximal section 13. The shaft 11 is formed of a braided tubular member 14 formed of a plurality of electrical conductors 15. The distal section 12 of the shaft 11 is provided with a plurality of bipolar electrode pairs 16, each pair of which includes electrodes 17 and 18. A core member 19 is disposed within the inner lumen of the braided tubular member 14 and extends beyond the distal end thereof. A distal coil 20 is disposed about and secured by suitable means, such as brazing, soldering or an appropriate adhesive, to the distal extremity of the core member 19 and is provided with a smooth rounded distal tip 21 formed by joining the distal tip of the coil 20 to the distal extremity of the core member 19. The distal extremity of the core member 19 may be flattened into a rectangular cross-section.
FIG. 2 illustrates a single braided layer with sixteen strands.
However, when a higher number of electrode pairs 16 are used, e.g. sixteen or more, a plurality of braided layers may be required, as depicted in FIG. 3. As shown in this drawing, the outer braided layer 22 terminates at a location proximal to that of the intermediate layer 23 and the intermediate layer terminates at a location proximal to the innermost layer 24 to facilitate securing and electrically connecting the electrodes 17 and 18 to the individual electrical conductors 15 as shown in FIG. 4. Some of the strands in the layers may not be conductors and be formed of polymer materials such as nylon.