JPH09206382A - Connection structure of medical guide wire - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a connection structure with suffcient connection strength without releasing during using, easily operated in connecting and connection releasing, without any harming protrusion, and enabling reusing of a guide wire in commonly using in exchanging a plurality of catheters connecting a guide wire for extension to the main wire to be inserted into the blood vessel of a patient. SOLUTION: At a tip 3 of an extension guide wire 2, a female connector 5 of a meandering tube is furnished which meanders in the longitudinal direction and is connected softly to a wavy part 4. In addition, a male connector 6 of a straight bar shape is furnished at the tip of a main guide wire 1. With plugging in the male connector 6 to the female connector 5, both elastically deform each other. Thus, while keeping the meandering shape, both are connected without becoming loose by coming into contact with each other on large areas.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a medical guide wire used to secure and ensure the insertion of a catheter when introducing the catheter into a cardiovascular vessel. The present invention relates to a medical guide wire connection structure in which an extension guide wire is connected in series to a wire.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A medical guide wire (hereinafter, simply referred to as a guide wire) is used for inserting an ultrafine flexible catheter into a blood vessel for the purpose of angiography and treatment of a vascular stenosis. In order to ensure safety, a guide wire made of a flexible extra-fine wire disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 425024/1992 is used, and a catheter is inserted into the blood vessel along the guide wire previously inserted into the blood vessel. After that, the guide wire is exchanged and a treatment with a catheter is performed.

As a balloon catheter used for treatment of a stenosis of blood vessels, a plurality of balloons having different expanded balloon diameters are prepared, and the balloons having smaller expanded balloon diameters are successively replaced with larger expanded balloon diameters. When it is inserted into the inside and treated with a balloon, and when angiography is performed with a catheter, at least 3 such as left coronary artery catheter, right coronary artery catheter, pigtail catheter, etc.
Angiography is performed by sequentially exchanging different types of catheters and inserting them into a patient's blood vessel.

From the above, if the intravascular insertion and withdrawal of the guide wire are repeated every time a plurality of balloon catheters are exchanged and inserted, the burden on the patient is increased and the number of treatment steps is increased and the treatment time is prolonged. Since the risk of vessel damage due to repeated insertion and withdrawal of the guide wire is increased, an extension guide wire is connected in series to the end of the guide wire inserted and set at a predetermined position in the blood vessel to extend it outside the body. The extension guide used for this system is a system that lengthens the wire in the extension part and uses the guide wire inserted into the blood vessel first without replacing the guide wire to sequentially exchange and insert multiple catheters. As a wire connection structure, Japanese Patent Publication No. 7-1028
There are known examples disclosed in JP-A-0-87858, JP-A-2-4390 and JP-A-5-92044.

That is, the known connection structure (see FIG. 3) is
A deep hole-shaped slot 1 at an end portion 3 (a portion that protrudes outside the body when inserted into a blood vessel) of a main guide wire 1 (an original guide wire to be inserted into a blood vessel is referred to as a main guide wire 1)
2, a connecting bar 13 protruding from the end portion of the extension guide wire 2 is inserted to have a basic structure for connecting the main guide wire 1 and the extension guide wire 2 in series. As shown in FIG. 3A, a crimp portion 14 formed by plastically deforming the insertion connecting portion into a trapezoidal shape that bulges in the radial direction of the guide wire is provided, or a slot 12 (see FIG. 3B) is provided. Connect the locking claw 15 inside to the connecting bar 1
3, a locking claw mechanism for engaging with the locking groove 16 of 3, or a locking projection 17 in the slot 12 is pressed against the connecting bar 13, or a slot 12 with a slit 18 is connected to the connecting bar 1.
A press-contact mechanism for press-contacting 3 is provided to prevent separation of the connected main guide wire 1 and extension guide wire 2 during use.

Further, (see FIG. 3C), the connecting bar is formed into a meandering connecting bar 13A which "wobbles" in the longitudinal direction, and is inserted into the slot 12 by force, and is prevented from coming off by the locking force by the force insertion. With a meandering bar structure,
An annular locking projection 17 formed by plastically deforming a part of the circumference of the tubular body of the slot 12 by annularly projecting is provided on the inner circumference of the slot 12, and an annular engagement is provided on the outer circumference of the connecting bar 13 inserted into the slot 12. There is an annular locking projection structure that presses the stop projection 17 to lock the connected state.

[0007]

In the conventional guide wire having the above crimp structure having the connecting structure, the main guide wire 1 and the extension guide wire 2 are mechanically rigidly connected and fixed, so that the catheter is Can withstand the resistance when guiding and inserting into the blood vessel and the resistance to pull out the catheter from the blood vessel (when pulling out the catheter from the blood vessel, there is a considerable resistance due to blood coagulation, etc.) and maintain a good connection state. However, the plastic working of the crimp portion 14 at the treatment site is extremely complicated and time-consuming, and in addition, the bulged crimp portion 14 serves as insertion / withdrawal resistance for the catheter, and the crimp portion 14 can be used as a guide wire. Since the flexibility is impaired, the workability of exchanging the catheter is poor, and it is not practical. Further, there is a problem in that the formation of the crimp portion 14 makes it impossible to repeatedly use the extension guide wire 2 when exchanging the catheter, resulting in high treatment cost.

The locking claw mechanism and the pressure contact mechanism described above have a fine wire having a fine diameter of 0.35 mm or the like.
Since the engaging groove 16 and the engaging claw 15 are provided in the connecting bar 13 and the like of about 2 bars, the engaging claw 15 and the like have an extremely micro size, and a locking force capable of withstanding the resistance of the catheter insertion / extraction described above can be expected. However, it is highly possible that the main guide wire 1 and the extension guide wire 2 will be disconnected during the catheter replacement work, and the extension function of the guide wire will be lost. Making it difficult,
There is no practicality.

On the other hand, as the meandering connecting bar 13A, for example, an extremely fine wire having a diameter of about 0.25 is plastically deformed into a meandering shape, so that the straight tube slot 12 is used.
The meandering connecting bar 1 which is less rigid than the pipe when inserted into
Since 3A is easily deformed into a straightened state and conforms to the shape of the slot 12, the connection locking force is poor, and the meandering shape is easily dented, which makes repeated use of the extension guide wire 2 difficult. Further, since the ring-shaped locking projection structure has a point-contact locking of the ring-shaped locking projection 17 to the connecting bar 13, the locking force is also inferior and it becomes an ultrafine tube having a diameter of about 0.3 mm. Due to the unavoidable "shape variation" in the processing of the annular locking projection 17, it becomes difficult to process the micro-sized annular locking projection 17 according to the design shape itself.
There is a clear possibility that the connection cannot be locked / deficient at a considerably high rate.

The present invention provides a connecting structure for a medical guide wire that solves the above-mentioned drawbacks of the prior art.

[0011]

The medical guide wire connection structure of the present invention which solves the above technical problems is described as follows: "At the base end connection part of the main guide wire to be inserted into a blood vessel, at the front end of the extension guide wire. In the medical guide wire for connecting and connecting the connecting portions in series, one of the connecting portions is formed as a female connecting portion of a meandering tube whose waveform is continuous in the pipe length direction, and the other of the connecting portions is It is formed on the male connecting portion of the straight bar body that is fitted and connected to the female connecting portion, and in the connected state, the meandering shape is maintained and the joint portion of the female and male connecting portions has a large area contact ". .

That is, the connecting structure of the present invention is a mechanical connecting structure comprising a female connecting portion of a tubular body and a bar-shaped male connecting portion which is inserted into and connected to the female connecting portion, and is bent from the male connecting portion. The female connecting portion of the tube body which is relatively excellent is formed in a meandering pipe, and the male connecting portion is formed in a straight bar shape,
To generate a necessary and sufficient fitting and locking force by elastically deforming both of the inserted and connected states based on their meandering shapes to bring them into contact with each other over a wide area and maintain their meandering shapes. Is configured as a technical idea. Then, the distal end portion of the tubular body of the female connecting portion is formed into a tapered pipe-shaped expanded portion, or similarly, only the distal end portion is heated and annealed to be softened, and the bar base portion of the male connecting portion in the insertion connected state is connected to the guide wire of the guide wire. A mode is adopted in which stress concentration due to bending during use is mitigated.

[0013]

According to the guide wire connecting structure of the present invention having the above-described structure, even if the thickness of the ring body of the female connecting portion is set to be considerably thin, the male bar of the straight bar body is used in the practical size range of the medical guide wire. Since the bending rigidity of the female connecting portion of the pipe body is superior to that of the connecting portion, when the male connecting portion is inserted into the female connecting portion, the male connecting portion easily adapts to the meandering shape of the female connecting portion and elastically deforms. At the same time, the female connecting part slightly elastically deforms the meandering shape due to the insertion resistance, the joint surface of both is in a wide area contact and elastically fits, while the basic shape of the meandering shape is maintained and the intermediate connection of the medical guide wire is connected. A necessary and sufficient connection locking force as a part can be obtained. Since the meandering shape that causes the locking force exists in the tube body, there is little risk of sagging and deformation, and shape retention is good.

Furthermore, the above-mentioned connecting structure can be connected / dissociated by taking a picture with a fingertip and strongly subtracting it, and when the connected state is dissociated, the female / male connecting portion is elastically restored to its original shape. In addition, the wear caused by the deduction is extremely small, and the guide wire can be repeatedly used a considerable number of times. Further, the meandering shape processing of the female connecting portion of the pipe body may be performed by bending processing of the pipe body which is generally popular, and a special connecting jig or the like is not used to form the female / male connecting portion. There is no difficulty.

[0015]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION The connecting structure for a medical guide wire according to the present invention is carried out as follows.

[0016]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 showing a connecting structure according to an embodiment of the present invention.
This will be described with reference to FIG. That is, in the connecting structure of the main guide wire 1 made of a stainless steel ultrafine wire to be inserted into a blood vessel and the extension guide wire 2 made of a stainless steel ultrafine wire connected in series with the main guide wire 1, an extension guide wire 2
A female connecting portion 5 made of a thin metal tubular body is provided at the base end 3 of the female connecting portion 5, and the female connecting portion 5 is a meandering tubular body that "bends" in the longitudinal direction of the tubular body. And the main guide wire 1
Is formed in a straight bar-shaped male connecting portion 6 into the hollow portion of the female connecting portion 5 of the extension guide wire 2,
The main guide wire 1 and the extension guide wire 2 are detachably connected by inserting and inserting the male connecting portion 6 of the main guide wire 1.

More specifically, the female connecting portion 5 is a thin-walled tubular body made of stainless steel or an alloy (titanium / nickel alloy or the like) and having a slightly long length, and the extension guide wire 2 is "caulked" on the reduced base portion 3. Alternatively, the rear end portion is fixed by an arbitrary means such as "brazing", and the hollow portion is extended and projected on the axial center 10 of the extension guide wire 2. And
The female connecting portion 5 is formed as a meandering tube in which the corrugated body 4 is continuously formed in the extending direction so that the entire pipe body gently "wobbles", and a part of the tip is a straight portion for facilitating insertion of the male connecting portion 6. It is part 8.

The male connecting portion 6 of the main guide wire 1 to be inserted and connected to the connecting portion 5 is integrally formed in a straight bar shape via a tapered portion 7 having a gradually reduced diameter of the extension guide wire 2, In order to facilitate the insertion into the female connecting portion 5, the tip has a rounded shape and has a gentle tapered shape.

The embodiment shown in FIG. 1 has a "female engaging portion 5".
Is a total length L1 = 30 moulds, a pipe inner diameter D2 = 0.23 mould diameter,
Pipe outer diameter D1 = 0.34, diameter of corrugated 4 H = 0.1
2 ply, pitch 4 of corrugated 4 = 5 ply "and" male connecting part 6 "
Is the total length L2 = 17, the diameter of the base portion D3 = 0.22
"Grain""The diameter of the main guide wire 1 and the extension guide wire 2 is 0.35 grit diameter".

The connecting structure of the embodiment shown in FIG. 1 has the above-mentioned effect. That is, the bending rigidity of the female connecting portion 5 in the above-mentioned dimension specifications becomes considerably larger than the bending rigidity of the male connecting portion 6 (the second moment of area of the cross section between the female connecting portion 5 and the male connecting portion 6 in the above-mentioned dimension specifications). Is significantly larger in the female connecting portion 5,
There is relatively greater bending rigidity than the male connecting portion 6).
Therefore, when the male connecting portion 6 is inserted and connected to the female connecting portion 5,
(See (B) of FIG. 1) The male connecting portion 6 conforms to the meandering shape of the female connecting portion 5 having excellent rigidity and elastically deforms to “wobble”.
In addition, the female connecting portion 5 that receives it is also connected to the male connecting portion 6
Due to the insertion resistance of, the meandering shape is slightly loosened and the meandering basic shape is maintained, and both are mechanically favorably retained and locked. And the meandering shape that causes the locking force is
Since it is present in the female connecting portion 5 of the tubular body, the shape stability is good, there is little risk of "deformation" due to bending etc. due to the use of the guide wire, and the locking performance can be maintained stably.

The retaining locking force is necessary and sufficient to prevent the connecting locking from being disengaged by the normal external force applied when the medical guide wire is used, and is strongly separated by the fingertip. The locking force provides optimum usability such that connection and disconnection can be easily performed. Since the connecting structure of the embodiment of FIG. 1 has a meandering shape on the tube side,
The meandering process is easy, there is little variation in the processing shape, the locking performance is stable, and the connection state is the wide area elastic contact. Less wear and stable repeatability of the guidewire.

In the connection structure of the present invention, in the above connection state, stress is concentrated on the base portion of the male engaging portion 6 with which the tip of the female connecting portion 5 comes into contact due to the wire bending during use, and the male engaging portion is engaged. In order to prevent the portion 6 from being damaged, as shown in FIG. 2, the tip end portion of the female connecting portion 5 is formed into a tip expanding portion 9 that gradually increases in diameter to form a taper portion of the male connecting portion 6. 7 is adopted or only the tip of the female connecting portion 5 is annealed by heating, and a mode of softening only the tip while keeping the meandering shape of the main body is adopted as necessary. Then, the female connecting portion 5 may be provided on the main guide wire 1 and the male connecting portion 6 may be provided on the extension guide wire 2. The annealing temperature is 220 ° C. to 2 for the titanium / nickel alloy.
55 ° C. is preferable, and a critical effect can be obtained at this temperature. And stainless steel is about 800 ℃ ~ 900
C is preferred.

[0023]

As described above, the medical guidewire connection structure of the present invention solves the drawbacks of the prior art and achieves the above-mentioned unique action, and is different from the conventional structure. The present invention provides a useful sub-concept invention based on a known super-concept structure in which the main guide wire and the extension guide wire are inserted and connected to each other.

Further, it has excellent connection performance and excellent operability of connection / disconnection, and there is no harmful bulging portion at the connection site, so that the guide wire extension connection function for catheter replacement use is provided. Satisfactorily and stably maintained, the stability of the treatment of the treatment is improved, the repeatability of the guide wire is improved, and the treatment cost is reduced. There are the above effects.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 shows a medical guide wire connection structure according to an embodiment of the present invention, (A) is a front view showing the structure, and (B) is an enlarged partial front view of the connection state.

FIG. 2 is a partial front view of a medical guide wire according to another embodiment of the present invention in a connected state.

FIG. 3 shows a conventional medical guide wire connection structure,
Front view of (A) (B) (C)

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Main Guide Wire 2 Extension Guide Wire 3 End Part 4 Waveform 5 Female Connecting Part 6 Male Connecting Part 7 Tapered Part 8 Straight Part 9 Tip Expanded Part 10 Shaft Center

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A medical guide wire in which a connecting portion at a proximal end of a main guide wire to be inserted into a blood vessel is connected in series with a connecting portion at a front end of an extension guide wire. Formed in the female connecting portion of the meandering tubular body in which the waveform is continuous in the pipe length direction, the other of the connecting portions is formed in the male connecting portion of the straight bar body that is fitted and connected to the female connecting portion, and in the connected state, A medical guide wire connecting structure, characterized in that the connecting portion of the female / male connecting portion is in wide area contact while maintaining the meandering shape. 2. The connecting structure for a medical guide wire according to claim 1, wherein the diameter of the distal end of the female connecting portion is increased to provide a diameter-expanding portion for increasing the diameter in the receiving port direction of the male connecting portion. 3. The connecting structure for a medical guide wire according to claim 1, wherein the tip of the female connecting portion is annealed by heating, and the tip portion is softened.