Medtronic Vascular, Inc.

Andrew J Kim

Scott Doig

Stephen Clark Meier

Terrance D Belluche

Eric D Johnson

Hillary K Huszar

An intravascular delivery catheter includes a middle member or manipulator to ameliorate the effect of buckling of the graft cover during the tracking or positioning of the delivery device within a body flow lumen to deploy an exclusion device, such a stent graft. The delivery device/catheter includes a region or regions of lower resistance to bending than other portions of the delivery device, which are positioned, within the delivery device, to preferentially bend the delivery system at locations where buckling will have minimal effect upon the deployment of the exclusion device from the delivery system. The preferential bending is accomplished, by providing a middle member/manipulator that is a rod with laterally oriented slots, having different depth and spacing configurations, or by using a wire coil as a portion of the middle member where the variable stiffness is created either by providing a variable/multiple coil diameter or by using a wire having a variable diameter along its length while the wire coil diameter is relatively uniform.

Intravascular deployment device with improved deployment capability

An endoluminal prosthesis having an unsupported or flexible region and a delivery system for delivering the endoluminal prosthesis is provided. The delivery system includes a prosthesis delivery catheter with stiffening elements that provide longitudinally rigid support to a flexible or unsupported portion of an endoluminal prosthesis as the prosthesis is being deployed. A prosthesis is removably coupled to the stiffening elements. The endoluminal prosthesis can be a stent or a stent graft or graft.

Growing community of inventors

Santa Rosa, CA, United States of America

Andrew J Kim