Shaft for medical catheters

Abstract

Several improvements are provided in the design of a catheter shaft to reduce costs and improve performance. In one aspect, a small notch is fabricated into a catheter tube by a nonlaser process such as electric discharge machining (EDM) or mechanical grinding. This notch in the catheter tube is necessary for fluid communication between the catheter lumen and a balloon or other element in communication with the tube. Use of a nonlaser process reduces the costs of fabrication while ensuring a high degree of structure integrity. In another aspect, a method is provided to produce a nonuniform polymer coating on a catheter shaft to reduce friction and to maintain a catheter with a low profile. In another aspect, the catheter is provided with a radiopaque marker which is more visible and is more effective at identifying the location of a balloon. The marker is moved closer to a distal balloon by placing it within an adhesive taper adjacent the balloon.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.