Metabolic disease is a serious medical condition that affects more than 30% of the U.S. population and can contribute significantly to morbidity and mortality. Complications associated with metabolic disease include obesity, hypertension, diabetes, coronary artery disease, stroke, congestive heart failure, multiple orthopedic problems, pulmonary insufficiency, sleep apnea, infertility, and markedly decreased life expectancy. Additionally, the complications or co-morbidities associated with metabolic disease, such as obesity, often affect an individual's quality of life. Accordingly, the monetary, physical, and psychological costs associated with metabolic disease can be substantial. For example, it is estimated that costs related to obesity alone exceed more than 100 billion dollars annually.
A variety of bariatric surgical procedures have been developed to treat complications of metabolic disease, such as obesity. The most common of these is the Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB). In a RYGB procedure, a small stomach pouch is separated from the remainder of the gastric cavity and attached to a resectioned portion of the small intestine. However, because this complex procedure requires a great deal of operative time, as well as extended and often painful post-operative recovery, the RYGB procedure is generally only utilized to treat people with morbid obesity.
In view of the highly invasive nature of the RYGB procedure, other less invasive bariatric procedures have been developed such as the Fobi pouch, bilio-pancreatic diversion, gastroplasty (“stomach stapling”), vertical sleeve gastrectomy, and gastric banding. In addition, implantable devices are known which limit the passage of food through the stomach. Gastric banding procedures, for example, involve the placement of a small band around the stomach near the junction of the stomach and the esophagus to restrict the passage from one part of the digestive tract to another, thereby affecting a patient's feeling of satiety.
While the above-described bariatric procedures are commonly used for the treatment of morbid obesity (i.e., greater than 100 pounds over one's ideal body weight), the risks of these procedures often outweigh the potential benefits for the growing segment of the population that is considered overweight. The additional weight carried around by these persons can still result in significant health complications, but does not justify more invasive treatment options. However, because conservative treatment with diet and exercise alone may be ineffective for reducing excess body weight, there is a need for treatment options that are less invasive and lower cost than the procedures discussed above.
It is known to create cavity wall plications through both laparoscopic and endoscopic procedures. Laparoscopic plication techniques can be complicated and complex, however, as one or more surgical entry ports must be employed to gain access to the surgical site. Furthermore, laparoscopically approaching the stomach often requires separating the surrounding omentum prior to plication formation. In endoscopic procedures, plication depth has traditionally suffered due to the size restrictions of the endoscopic lumen. For example, the rigid length and diameter of a surgical device are limited based on what sizes can be reliably and safely passed trans-orally into the stomach. Furthermore, access and visibility within the gastric and peritoneal cavities is progressively limited in an endoscopic procedure as the extent of the reduction increases because the volume of the gastric cavity is reduced.
In addition, prior art devices for forming endoluminal plications often utilize opposing jaws and a grasper element to draw tissue between the jaws. The prior art devices approach the cavity wall such that a longitudinal axis of the device is perpendicular to the cavity wall. The grasper element can then be advanced from the center of the open jaws, and used to draw tissue between the jaws to create the fold. However, the geometry of these devices limits the size of the plication that can be formed to approximately the length of the jaws, as the grasper can only draw the cavity wall tissue to the center of the jaws and no farther. Moreover, in order to secure a plication with a plurality of fasteners, prior art devices must release the tissue and be repositioned anew to apply each fastener.
With the foregoing in mind, it is desirable to have methods and devices for forming tissue folds, such as serosa-to-serosa tissue folds within the gastric lumen, that overcome any of the aforementioned problems.