Patent Application
20170246015
Attachable anchors including barbs to a stent and methods for attaching the anchor to the stents are disclosed here.
Barbs attached to prosthetic devices including stents, vena cava filters, valves, and other intraluminal devices for treatment of aortic aneurisms and other related vascular diseases help to secure placement of the prosthesis after implantation and deployment in the treated vessel or other conduit. The barbs are positioned to engage and embed into the walls of the treated vessel for permanent attachment. Some barb designs present limitations to barb placement and the life of the barb depending on the design of the stent. High stress or stain near regions on a wire stent caused by limitations of the barb design and the method of attachment of the barb to the wire stent may result in fatigue and failure of the stent and barb fatigue or fracture.
There remains a continuing need for a barb design and method for attachment thereof that reduces barb failure after implantation of the device. A barb design that reduces the likelihood of failure eliminates the need for any additional surgical procedures if the device becomes displaced after barb failure and any patient discomfort and potential risks involved in additional procedures and device displacement. Accordingly, embodiments of a new barb design and methods of attachment to a prosthetic device that substantially reduce barb failure or fracture have been developed.
Embodiments disclosed here may include an endoluminal prosthesis. The prosthesis may include a support structure, such as a stent, having a plurality of struts and an anchor that is attachable to the support structure. The anchor includes an anchor body and one or more barbs extending outwardly from the anchor body. The anchor body includes a cannula having a first end, a second end, and a middle section. The middle section includes a plurality of open portions arranged in a plurality of arrays around the anchor body.
In further embodiments, the plurality of open portions include a first end, a second end and a middle portion. The middle portion includes a linear shape, and the first and second ends include a circular shape. The circular shape of each first end and each second end of the open portions provide relief to reduce stress concentrations at the ends of the linear shape of the middle section.
Additional embodiments may include a plurality of bands arranged around the anchor body for attaching the anchor body to one of the plurality of struts of the support structure. The plurality of bands and the plurality of arrays of open portions may be positioned in an alternating pattern along the anchor body. The plurality of bands provide multiple rings of contact for affixing the anchor to the support structure. The multiple rings of contact along with the plurality of open portions reduce any friction created when positioning the anchor on the support structure that may cause fatigue or failure and reduce stress concentrations on the support structure after positioning.
Another embodiment may include a method for attaching an anchor to an endoluminal support structure having a plurality of struts. The method of attaching includes providing an anchor including an anchor body and a plurality of barbs extending outwardly from the anchor body, the anchor body including a cannula having a plurality of open portions arranged in a plurality of arrays around the anchor body, and a plurality of bands arranged around the anchor body and between each array of relief segments. The method of attaching further includes positioning the cannula over a strut of the endoluminal support structure and affixing the cannula to the support structure at the plurality of bands.
The term “prosthesis” means any replacement for a body part or for a function of that body part or any device that enhances or adds functionality to a physiological system.
The term “support structure” means any device that is attached to a prosthesis. For example, a support structure can comprise stents, radiopaque markers, anchoring stents, barbs, and lateral support rings for supporting an open portion. The structural components can be attached to the exterior of the graft, the interior of the graft, and/or can be sandwiched between two or more layers of graft material.
The support structure can be made from numerous base materials, such as: biocompatible metals or other metallic materials; polymers including bioabsorbable or biostable polymers; stainless steels; nickel-titanium alloys including shape memory or superelastic types (e.g., nitinol or elastinite); noble metals including platinum, gold, or palladium; refractory metals including tantalum, tungsten, molybdenum, or rhenium; stainless steels alloyed with noble and/or refractory metals; silver; rhodium; inconel; iridium; niobium; titanium; magnesium; amorphous metals; plastically deformable metals (e.g., tantalum); nickel-based alloys (e.g., including platinum, gold, and/or tantalum alloys); iron-based alloys (e.g., including platinum, gold, and/or tantalum alloys); cobalt-based alloys (e.g., including platinum, gold, and/or tantalum alloys); cobalt-chrome alloys (e.g., elgiloy); cobalt-chromium-nickel alloys (e.g., phynox); alloys of cobalt, nickel, chromium, and molybdenum; cobalt-chromium-vanadium alloys; cobalt-chromium-tungsten alloys; platinum-iridium alloys; platinum-tungsten alloys; magnesium alloys; titanium alloys (e.g., TiC, TiN); tantalum alloys (e.g., TaC, TaN); L605; magnetic ferrite; nonmetallic biocompatible materials including polyamides, polyolefins (e.g., polypropylene or polyethylene), nonabsorbable polyesters (e.g., polyethylene terephthalate); composites; any mixture, blend, alloy, copolymer or combination of any of these; or various other suitable materials not limited by these examples.
The term “stent” means any device that provides rigidity, expansion force, or support to a prosthesis, such as a stent graft. In one configuration, the stent can represent a plurality of discontinuous devices. In another configuration, the stent can represent one device. Stents can have a wide variety of configurations and can be balloon-expandable or self-expanding. Typically, stents have a circular cross-section when fully expanded, so as to conform to the generally circular cross-section of a body lumen. In one example, a stent can comprise struts (elongate portions) and acute bends (curvilinear portions) that are arranged in a zig-zag configuration, as exemplified in a Z-stent, in which the struts are set at angles to each other and are connected by the acute bends.
The terms “swage fitted,” “swage fitting,” “swage fit,” or “swaging” means any process that provides a means for attaching any device to a support structure including shaping, molding, forming, forging, bending, squeezing, working, or hammering the device to achieve a particular shape. The process may include cooling or heating the device to facilitate the process.
A variety of biocompatible materials can be employed to construct the stent, or portions of the stent, including metals and/or alloys, medically-acceptable polymers and/or bioabsorbable polymers, or materials. The metals and/or alloys may, among other things, include stainless steel, tantalum, nitinol, gold, silver, tungsten, platinum, inconel, cobalt-chromium alloys, and iridium, all of which are commercially available metals or alloys used in the fabrication of medical devices. In a preferred configuration, the stent is constructed from nitinol, stainless steel, and/or cobalt-chromium alloys.
Embodiments are described with reference to the drawings in which like elements are generally referred to by like numerals. The relationship and functioning of the various elements of the embodiments may better be understood by reference to the following detailed description. However, embodiments are not limited to those illustrated in the drawings. It should be understood that the drawings are not necessarily to scale, and in certain instances details may have been omitted that are not necessary for an understanding of embodiments of the present invention, such as—for example—conventional fabrication and assembly. The terms “distal” and “proximal” are to be understood with their standard usages, referring to the direction away from and the direction toward the handle/user end of a tool or device, respectively (i.e., the term “distal” means the direction or portion of the device that is farthest from the plurality of barbs and the term “proximal” means the portion of the device that is nearest to the plurality of barbs). In
The present invention now will be described more fully hereinafter. This invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art. As used in this specification and the claims, the singular forms “a,” “an,” and “the” include plural referents unless the context clearly dictates otherwise.
The anchor body 8 illustrated in
Referring to
The anchor 6 also includes one or more barbs 10 to secure the endoluminal prosthesis 2 to the wall of the treated vessel. The barb 10 depicted in
A method of attaching the anchor 6 to the support structure 4 includes positioning the cannula 12 over a strut of the plurality of struts of the support structure 4 to a desired location. The anchor 6 may be attached or affixed to the support structure 4 at the plurality of bands 24. The cannula 12 of the anchor 6 may be affixed to the strut by swage fit or other fastening means by use of a swag fitting tool or other mechanical tool.
Those of skill in the art will appreciate that embodiments not expressly illustrated herein may be practiced within the scope of the present invention, including that features described herein for different embodiments may be combined with each other and/or with currently-known or future-developed technologies while remaining within the scope of the claims presented here. Although specific terms are employed herein, they are used in a generic and descriptive sense only and not for purposes of limitation. It is therefore intended that the foregoing detailed description be regarded as illustrative rather than limiting. And, it should be understood that the following claims, including all equivalents, are intended to define the spirit and scope of this invention. Furthermore, the advantages described above are not necessarily the only advantages of the invention, and it is not necessarily expected that all of the described advantages will be achieved with every embodiment of the invention.
The present patent document claims the benefit of the filing date under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of Provisional U.S. Patent Application Ser. No. 61/677,689, filed Jul. 31, 2012, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61677689 | Jul 2012 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 13951926 | Jul 2013 | US |
| Child | 15593665 | US |
