US 6,190,394 B1Granted

Medical retrieval basket

AssigneeAnnex Medical, Inc.

InventorsStuart J. Lind, Eugene C. Karels

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Abstract

A medical retrieval basket for removing objects such as urinary and biliary calculi from the body. The basket comprises an elongated flexible tube and a cage which is extendible from the distal end of the tube and can be collapsed by withdrawing into the tube by means of an actuation cable which passes through the tube. The cage consists of a plurality of flexible elements which are outwardly disposed to form a space for entrapping objects. The flexible elements are constructed of a shape memory material, allowing the cage to resume its original configuration when extended from the tube. The configuration of the cage is such that by means of rotating the cage, differing sizes, cross sectional shapes and/or spacing of the flexible elements may be presented to a given portion of the object to be removed. Rotation of the cage is controlled more precisely using an actuation cable constructed of nickel titanium.

Claims10

Dependent claims

A medical retrieval basket for extracting an object from a body comprising:

a cage having a longitudinal axis and an expandable portion consisting of a plurality of flexible elements which are outwardly disposed to form a space for entrapping said object,
a tubular means for the collapsing of said flexible elements when withdrawn into said tubular means,
an actuation means to enable the movement of said flexible elements into and out of said tubular means and to enable rotation of said cage,
the impivement wherein the flexible elements, when outwardly disposed, include a plurality of flexible elements, forming a plural set, which are spaced relatively closely to each other and spaced relatively far from adjacent flexible elements outside of the plural set, the flexible elements, when outwardly disposed, also including a single flexible element spaced relatively far from adjacent flexible elements, wherein there are a plurality of plural sets and at least one single flexible element spaced around said longitudinal axis, whereby rotation of said actuation means will cause rotation of said cage in order to present either a single flexible element or a said plural set to the object being removed.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.