Patent Application
20130267904
The present invention relates generally to syringes, and more particularly, to syringes with visually coded needle hubs to designate needle gauge, needle length, syringe type, or the like.
One mode of insulin therapy for diabetes is injection of insulin via disposable syringes. Generally, a user removes a safety cap disposed over the needle on the syringe, pierces a cover of an insulin container with the needle, and withdraws a predetermined amount of insulin to prepare the insulin for injection. The user then pierces his or her skin with the needle and injects the insulin. After injecting the insulin, the syringe is discarded.
Conventional disposable syringes generally include a molded cylindrical barrel, a needle hub fastened to the barrel, and a needle disposed in the needle hub to communicate liquids disposed in the barrel by operation of a plunger. Syringes are marked along the barrel with visual indicators of the volume of liquid disposed within the barrel to allow a user to withdraw and inject the correct volume of medication. Conventional molded needle hubs are not separately marked after assembly, making it difficult to ascertain the properties of the needle.
In insulin treatment, there are different insulin concentrations available to users. To accommodate the different concentrations of insulin, the markings on the syringe barrel may correspond to units of insulin of a particular insulin concentration. Therefore, if two co-habitating insulin users have different insulin requirements, it may be possible for one of the users to inadvertently use an incorrect syringe and inject an incorrect insulin dosage.
An object of embodiments of the present invention is to substantially address the above and other concerns, and to provide improved insulin injection devices. These and other objects are substantially achieved by providing a molded cylindrical barrel having visual marks on the surface of the barrel in the axial direction, a plunger having a stopper attached to an end of the plunger to seal the distal opening of the cylindrical barrel, and a molded needle hub disposed in the proximal opening of the cylindrical barrel for sealing the cylindrical barrel.
The needle hub comprises a flange having a circumferential surface that comprises a visually coded mark such as a color. The mark corresponds to a characteristic of the syringe such as needle gauge, needle length, syringe type, medication, or units of medication associated with the visual marks on the surface of the barrel. The circumferential surface of the flange may radially extend beyond the surface of the barrel to allow easy identification of the syringe and its associated characteristics.
In the exemplary embodiments disclosed herein, a generic needle hub may be manufactured without a needle and specific syringes may be made from the generic needle hub based on production requirements to thereby facilitate manufacturing. In yet other embodiments, a needle is fixed to the needle hub and marked with a visual mark on the needle hub's surface to identify the characteristics of needle to facilitate manufacturing.
The various objects, advantages and novel features of the exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be more readily appreciated from the following detailed description when read in conjunction with the appended drawings, in which:
As best illustrated in
In one exemplary embodiment, the mark 118 may be applied to needle hub 104 by applying an ultraviolet (UV) resin to the surface of the needle hub 104 and exposing the needle hub to UV light. In such an embodiment, the UV resin reacts to the UV light and creates the mark 118. For instance, a suitable UV ink by Capex Corporation may be used due to its polymerization initiated by exposure to the UV light. However, any suitable method of applying a visually coded mark may be used to create the mark 118 such as, without limitation, pad printing, dipping, roll printing, laser treating, two-shot molding, and so forth.
At step 133, a mark is selected for the needle hub associated with the visual marks on the cylindrical barrel. In other exemplary embodiments, the exemplary process 130 may begin by selecting a mark associated with a needle length, needle gauge, or any other syringe characteristic. A UV resin associated with the selected mark is applied to a needle hub corresponding to the barrel at step 134. In one example, the UV resin is applied to the circumferential surface on the flange of the needle hub. In other exemplary embodiments, the UV resin may be applied to the entire needle hub or patterns of UV resin may be selectively applied to any surface of the needle hub as described above. After applying the UV resin to the needle hub, the needle hub is exposed an UV light source to cure the resin and polymerize the resin to the needle hub to create the mark on the needle hub at step 136. In one example, the ultraviolet resin may cause the needle hub flange to be black, red, or blue. However, any color or combination of colors or patterns (e.g., a stripe, a dashed line, etc.) may be used.
After curing the resin, a needle is fastened to the needle hub at step 138 by any suitable means (e.g., epoxy, etc.). The exemplary process 130 continues placing a needle safety shield over the needle hub at step 140. The needle hub is then fastened to the barrel at step 142 by placing barrel 106 into an opening of the needle hub as described above.
The above-described exemplary embodiments allow a generic needle hub to be molded and fitted with any suitable needle, thereby requiring only one generic needle hub for each barrel radius. Further, the mark on the needle hub is always exposed, even with a needle safety shield 114 in place, and provides a visual indicator of the content (e.g., insulin concentration, medication, etc.) or other characteristic of the syringe (needle gauge, needle length, barrel volume, barrel radius, etc.). Because the colored mark on the flange extends from the circumferential surface of the barrel, it can be easily seen from any angle. In other examples, the needle hub may be fabricated with the needle already fixed in place prior to creating the mark with the UV resin. Another exemplary embodiment may further comprise filling the assembled syringe 100 with a medication such as insulin. In such an example, the insulin concentration in the syringe is associated with the colored mark on the syringe. Other exemplary embodiments may further comprise a safety syringe having the mark as described above.
The barrel is then selectively exposed to a laser source, which reacts with the laser marking dye to create a mark at step 158. At step 158, to prevent substantial damage to the plastic of the barrel, the laser source selectively exposes portions of the surface of the barrel at fine intervals to create a color shade on a region of the barrel without creating substantial thermal damage on its surface. The needle hub is then selectively exposed to the laser source to create a fine pattern to create a color shaded on its surface at step 160. In the exemplary process 150 at step 162, the needle hub may also be selectively exposed to create a solid line, a pattern, a logo, or other text at step 162 (e.g., an arcing line similar to the mark 146).
After laser marking the needle hub and/or barrel, the needle is fastened to the needle hub at step 164 by any suitable means (e.g., epoxy, etc.). A needle safety shield is placed over the needle and needle hub at step 165. The needle hub is fastened to the barrel at step 166 by, for example, placing the barrel into the opening of the needle hub and then applying a force to cause the fastener to latch to the barrel as described above.
The above-described examples allow a selectively color shaded needle hub with a mark and/or a shaded barrel. The shaded barrel and/or shaded needle hub can be used in conjunction to identify multiple syringe characteristics. For instance, the needle hubs may have no shade if the needle length is less than 6 millimeters (mm) and a light shade if greater 6 mm. In such an example, the flange of the needle hub may be marked with a color by a UV cure process as described above to indicate additional syringe characteristics. In other examples, the shade of the needle hub, the shade of the barrel, a color mark on the base, and a color mark on the flange may be a visual indicator of the content (e.g., insulin concentration, medication) and/or other parameters of the syringe (needle gauge, needle length, barrel volume, barrel radius, etc.). The shade of the mark can be adjusted by, for example, adjusting the amount of laser marking dye added to the polymer.
The color of the mark 118 may also be disposed on additional materials that are associated with the syringe 100 for a user's convenience. For instance, as illustrated in
In each of the embodiments disclosed herein and in other alternative embodiments, the syringe molded components can be made of polypropylene, polyethylene, polyethylene terephthalate, and/or bio-derived resins such as polylactide, starch-filled polypropylene, or polyhydroxyalkanoates. Alternatively, bio-degradable resins may be used to form the syringe molded components. The needle on the needle hub can be fixed to the needle hub either before or after the marking is placed on the needle hub. As described above, when provided to the user, the syringe can be filled with medication (e.g., insulin) or may be empty so a user can withdraw the medication from a corresponding container. The user may retrieve the syringe from packaging that is also marked with the substantially identical color, thereby providing the user multiple notifications as to the insulin concentration that will be injected. This ensures the user will use the correct amount of insulin by implementing multiple warnings using a visual indicator such as a particular color, pattern, and so forth.
Although only a few exemplary embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail above, those skilled in the art will readily appreciate that many modifications are possible in the exemplary embodiments without materially departing from the novel teachings and advantages of this invention. Accordingly, all such modifications are intended to be included within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents.
