The present invention relates to an operation balloon which prevents a liquid or a gas from leaking from one area of the body to another area thereof. More specifically, the present invention concerns a surgical balloon which is constituted by an aggregate of balloons so as to exert a strong shielding force and can close the rear-nasal cavity virtually completely, and which is provided with: a surgical balloon fixing device for pulling the balloon from the front-nasal cavity so as to fix it therein, a nasal drain for draining water from the front-nasal cavity, a soft nasal water-supplying tube for sending rinsing water into the nasal cavity, and a movable nasal water-supplying tube for sending rinsing water into the nasal cavity. This arrangement makes it possible to carry out a surgical operation on the nasal cavity using an endoscope with the nasal cavity filled with a water flow and also to forcefully rinse the nasal cavity after the surgical operation, and also makes it possible to carry out a ultrasonic diagnosis inside the nasal cavity by filling the nasal cavity with a water flow; thus it becomes possible to completely stop bleeding after the nasal surgical operation so that the patient is allowed to leave the hospital earlier, and also to easily stop bleeding even in the case of a patient with serious nose bleeding.
In recent years, surgical operations using endoscopes have been widely carried out in various medical fields, and its major advantage is that it is possible to obtain information with detailed views with a minimum of surgical damages. With respect to the sub-nasal cavity surgery, instead of the conventional direct surgery on the sub-nasal cavity accompanying great surgical damages, the surgical operation using a nose endoscope has come to be widely carried out.
Conventionally, in the case of a nose surgical operation using an endoscope, the viewing field of the endoscope tends to become foggy, when even a slight amount of blood or stain adheres to the tip of the endoscope or when the patient""s inhaled air passes through the nasal cavity, and every time such a situation occurs, the endoscope has to be pulled out so as to wipe the tip thereof; this causes a serious problem of inefficiency. Moreover, in most cases, the endoscope is held by one hand, and the surgical operation is carried out by the other hand, and in the case of much bleeding, immediately after having removed blood by using a suction tube, etc., the suction tube is taken out, and after switching this to forceps, etc., the forceps have to be inserted to the surgical viewing field; this also causes a serious problem of inefficiency. If the surgical operation is simultaneously carried out while removing blood, a fast operation can be carried out; however, it is very difficult to simultaneously insert the endoscope, the forceps and the suction tube into the narrow front nostril and to operate these.
Conventionally, since bleeding inside the nasal cavity during the operation tends to flow into the throat heads, the patient tends to feel pain, and might have a swallowing action erroneously.
Moreover, conventionally, in the case when a rinsing process is carried out inside the nasal cavity after the operation, since the rinsing liquid flows from the nasal cavity into the throat heads, it has been impossible to use a large amount of rinsing water.
If it is possible to prevent liquid from flowing from the nasal cavity to the throat heads, it would become possible to use an endoscope within a surgical viewing field filled with a water flow as in the case of an urethrae operation through urea in the field of urinary organs, also in the case of the nose surgical operation using an endoscope. This would enable prevention of contamination of the tip of the endoscope, removal of continuous blood, use of a great amount of rinsing water after the operation and prevention of bleeding inside the nasal cavity during the operation from flowing into the throat heads; however, conventional techniques have failed to achieve these functions.
Conventionally, with respect to items for preventing a liquid from flowing from the nasal cavity to the throat heads, for example, there have been provided Belloc* pads used for stopping nose bleeding and rear-nostril balloons for stopping nose bleeding. In the case of Belloc* pads, a pad, formed by compressing cotton or gauze, etc., is pull from the front-nostril side so as to press and close a rear nostril from the throat heads side; however, the pad is made of a fabric material, with the result that it fails to completely block a fluid from flowing inside. Moreover, the rear-nostril balloon for stopping nose bleeding has a structure in which the pad portion of the Belloc* pad is replaced by a balloon, and is used to press and close the rear nostril from the throat heads side in the same method; however, it has been found that, although the balloon has a high inner pressure at the time of application so that it has a sufficient fixing property, it fails to conform to the complex shape of the rear-nostril because of its lack of flexibility, resulting in a gap mainly on throat head side of the rear-nostril and serious degradation in the blocking property.
Moreover, there has been provided a yarmic* catheter in which the front-nostril and the rear-nostril are closed by respective balloons, and suction is applied thereto; however, it has been found that, although this achieves its main purpose that a negative pressure is applied with the air being blocked, it is not capable of providing a completely blocking property upon application of a great amount of water under a positive pressure.
The present invention has been devised to solve the above-mentioned problems and its objective is to provide a surgical balloon which can close a rear-nostril with a complete air-shielding property to prevent a liquid from flowing into throat heads independent of differences in the physique of a patient, even when a large amount of rinsing water is rapidly poured into a nasal cavity.
In other words, the present invention provides a surgical balloon which prevents a liquid or a gas from flowing from one area of the body to another area thereof by using an aggregate of a plurality of balloons, and this balloon has a structure in which one or a plurality of balloons are placed inside or outside of one or a plurality of balloons so that it simultaneously satisfies the fixing property and the shielding property.
The combination of a balloon having a fixing property and a balloon having a shielding property makes it possible to effectively prevent a liquid from flowing from a nasal cavity to throat heads. Therefore, since a surgical operation can be carried out with the nasal cavity being filled with a water flow, it is possible to prevent contamination to the tip of an endoscope, to continuously remove blood, and also to discharge a mucous membrane taken by forceps through the water flow; thus, it becomes possible to effectively carry out the surgical operation. Moreover, since the nasal cavity is filled with a water flow, an ultrasonic wave can be applied to the nasal cavity so that a medical examination can be carried out on the peripheral conditions of a surgical portion; thus, it is possible to prevent adverse effects from being given to an eye socket, optic nerves and cranium ground that are susceptible to accidents. Furthermore, the application of a strong rinsing process after the surgical operation makes it possible to prevent any infection after the surgical operation, and since leaving the balloon after the surgical operation makes it possible to stop bleeding, the patient is allowed to leave the hospital earlier.
In addition, it is possible to easily stop bleeding even in the case of a patient having a serious nose bleeding.