Patent Application
20230049673
This application relates generally to endoscopes, particularly to endoscopes with bougie distal tips hosting optical and electrical parts to be reused and further to methods of collecting and reusing bougie distal tips of endoscopes.
Generally, the cost of medical procedures for minimally, invasively exploring and treating the body of a subject is significantly impacted by the cost of the endoscopes or scope used. Such scopes can be used, for example, for imaging and treating issues involving the kidney calyces, bladder, ureter, or airway intubation. In addition to the significant cost of such reusable scopes, they must be cleaned and sterilized after each procedure to prevent cross infection of patients. This process has been shown to be very costly as well. For a high throughput endoscopy center, this means having to stock several scopes to do multiple procedures in a day as well as having to stock additional scopes to supplement the instrument due to breakage.
The most expensive parts of an endoscope include the camera, light source and the PCB board. Some disposable endoscopes require complicated assembly, sterilization and reassembly processes in order to reuse one or more costly items. For these reasons, an endoscope assembly that allows for easy and effective sterilization and reuse of the most expensive parts may reduce the cost of endoscopy use per procedure and meet clinician quality expectations. It also leads to improvements in both patient safety and hospital efficiency. Accordingly, herein disclosed methods and apparatus are directed to solve one or more problems set forth above and other problems.
In accordance with a first aspect of the present disclosure, there is set forth an endoscope that includes an elongated bougie, a distal tip at a distal end of the bougie and a handle at a proximal end of the bougie. The distal tip has a camera, an LED light, and a distal tip housing forming a distal tip chamber. The endoscope also has a PCB board connector having at least one PCB board, and at least a portion of the PCB board is nestled within the distal tip chamber. The PCB board connector is disposed between the distal tip and the distal end of the elongated bougie when being assembled. The distal tip and the PCB board connector are attached into one integral distal assembly by removable attaching means, such as a pair of snap fit hood and holder. The integral distal end assembly is configured to be cut from the old bougie used in a medical procedure and to be collected and later disassembled, sterilized, and reassembled with another new bougie.
Also disclosed is a distal assembly of an endoscope that includes a distal tip having a camera, an LED light, and a distal tip housing forming a distal tip chamber. The distal assembly also includes a PCB board connector having at least one PCB board. At least a portion of the PCB board is configured to nestle within the distal tip chamber. The distal tip and the PCB board connector are attached into one integral distal assembly by removable attaching means, such as a pair of snap fit hood and holder.
In the drawings, like reference characters generally refer to the same parts throughout the different views. Also, the drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead generally being placed upon illustrating the principles of the disclosed systems and methods and are not intended as limiting. For purposes of clarity, not every component may be labeled in every drawing. In the following description, various embodiments are described with reference to the following drawings.
Numerals corresponding to those shown in the drawings are listed in Table-1. Terms assigned to corresponding numerals are also given in Table-1.
The following description of the vertebral column of the endoscopes uses an ureteroscope as an example. It should be appreciated that the scope and spirit of this disclosure is not limited to this example. The example of using partially reusable endoscopes, entirely reusable, or entirely disposable endoscopes do not affect the scope of present disclosure. The term of endoscope or scope can be interchangeable used with many types of endoscopes, such as ureteroscope, cystoscope, bronchoscope, and laparoscope, etc.
Referring to
It should be noted that PCB connector 26 can be any kind of electronic connectors, such as a pair of USB-C connector and socket or any of other choices. The variations of such are within the scope of the present disclosure.
Endoscope 1 further includes an articulation knob 34 disposed at handle 32. Upon being maneuvered, articulation knob 34 causes a deflection of vertebral column 38, which is connected with the articulation knob 34 by a pulling assembly explained later in more detail.
Referring to
In one example embodiment, vertebral column 36 and the bougie 28 are made by the same process of plastic formation, such as plastic molding or plastic extrusion.
As such, this configuration enables one of the novel aspects of the present disclosure which allows for the most expensive electronic and optical parts of endoscope 1 to be included as an integral part and all located at distal assembly 2, which can be recollected after a surgery, sterilized and reused. On the other hand, the rest of endoscope 1, including bougie 28, probe proximal end 30, and handle 32, which are mostly plastic parts, can all be disposed after each use. This is different from other existing reusable or partially reusable endoscope, in which, the PCB assembly is located at or near the handle portion of an endoscope, preventing it from being easily recollected, sterilized and reused together with the camera and LED portions.
Referring to
Distal end housing 42 takes a hollow structure, forming a connector chamber front 43 to host PCB board 38. Connector chamber front 43 may take any shape, such as a rectangular prism or a cylindrical prism, according to the shape of PCB board 38.
Reference is continuously made to
It can be noted in
As can be seen, PCB board connector 26 and the distal tip 20 have a pair of matching removably attaching means causing the distal tip 20 and the PCB board connector 26 to be removably attached as an integral distal end when assembled.
Referring to
Referring to
As can be seen, PCB connector housing 40 is configured to be pulled away co-axially with the distal end housing, from the connector chamber front 43, bringing the PCB board away from the distal tip 20 when disassembled or to be pushed into connector chamber front 43 co-axially, causing the PCB board to be nestled within the distal tip chamber.
In the example embodiment, when assembled, PCB board 38, connector 46, camera 22, and light source 24 are electronically connected, and at least major portion of them are all housed in distal tip 20. Distal tip 20 and PCB connector 26 form one integral piece, which is the distal assembly 2 as shown in
Reference now is made to
As shown in
It can be noted that vertebral column 36 has gaping slits on a circumferential surface of the vertebral column 36. Gaping slits opposite to the direction of the deflection open wider while the others close narrower during deflection.
As shown in
As shown in
As such, when articulation knob 34 is swung, resulting pulley 58 to swing, with pull wire being flexible but not stretchable, it causes pull wire 35 to pull distal tip 20 away from the axial direction, further causing a deflection of vertebral column 36.
As shown in
As shown in
Distal tip 20 also includes a slanted pointing guide at the furthest distal end, serving to ease and guide the inserting of bougie 28.
PCB line 48 shown in
External electronic connector 56 can host and be connected with any external devices to transmit signals and/or power between PCB line 48 and the external electronics, such as a user interface, a video display device, or a power source.
As shown in
As shown in
In another example embodiment, camera 22 itself includes a processor that digitizes image signals and directly outputs digitized image data. All such alternative embodiments are within the scope of the present disclosure.
Yet in another example embodiment, distal tip 20 is an integral part including camera 24 and LED 26 without the need to assemble.
Referring to
Snap fit assembly including snap fit hook 50 and snap fit holder 52 are shown clearly in circumferential cross-sectional views. As described above, when assembled, snap fit hook 50 and snap fit holder 52 hold distal tip 20 and PCB connector 26 firmly as an integral piece during surgical procedures. The snap fit assembly can be opened during sterilization and reassembly process.
Additionally, it is contemplated that systems, devices, methods, and processes of the present application encompass variations and adaptations developed using information from the embodiments described in the following description. Adaptation or modification of the methods and processes described in this specification may be performed by those of ordinary skill in the relevant art.
Throughout the description, where compositions, compounds, or products are described as having, including, or comprising specific components, or where processes and methods are described as having, including, or comprising specific steps, it is contemplated that, additionally, there are articles, devices, and systems of the present application that consist essentially of, or consist of, the recited components, and that there are processes and methods according to the present application that consist essentially of, or consist of, the recited processing steps.
It should be understood that the order of steps or order for performing certain action is immaterial so long as the described method remains operable. Moreover, two or more steps or actions may be conducted simultaneously.
