Intravascular devices are devices that are generally placed within the lumen of a blood vessel during a therapeutic procedure. The therapeutic procedure may be any one of a wide variety of procedures, such as for example, stent delivery, angioplasty, atherectomy, embolic filtering, aortic occlusion, or any other therapeutic procedure performed in a blood vessel. The intravascular device used in such procedures typically include a catheter or guidewire for obtaining access to a desired location in a patient's blood vessel.
In general, the therapeutic procedures involve inserting a catheter or guidewire into a blood vessel such as the femoral artery. The catheter is then pushed into the blood vessel and into branches of blood vessels until the distal end of the catheter has reached a desired location within the patient's blood vessels. Once properly positioned, the therapeutic procedure is performed.
The path to the desired location in the patient's blood vessels is typically not an easy one. The blood vessels contain many branches into other blood vessels of varying sizes creating a tortuous path to almost any position in the body. Some applications use imaging to assist in properly placing the catheter. Radio opaque markers on strategic points on the catheter may be used to locate the parts of the catheter on an x-ray or other suitable form of imaging as the catheter is being placed. The use of imaging however requires special equipment often only available in specially equipped rooms in a hospital or other facility. There are intravascular procedures that may need to be performed on an emergency basis outside of a hospital setting. For example, a patient may require an aortic occlusion device to slow blood loss while at an accident site.
Even when a patient is in a hospital setting and requires a therapeutic procedure involving placing a catheter in the patient's blood vessels, it would be desirable to place the catheter without the need to use special imaging equipment. It would be desirable in some therapeutic procedures to have the option to administer a catheter from the patient's bedside without the need to transfer the patient to another room.
Another difficulty with placing a catheter is due to the construction of a typical catheter. Catheters typically extend distally to a tip. In some catheters, a guiding balloon near the tip is used to center the tip as the catheter winds its way through the tortuous path of the patient's blood vessels. Otherwise, the tip is pushed through the blood vessels without any real advantage for navigating the different branches that the catheter could follow.
There is a need in the art for a way to insert a catheter in a patient's blood vessels and to place the catheter at a desired location in the blood vessels without the need for special imaging equipment or for special facilities.