Alton Dean Medical

In-Touch Products Co.

Dixon Ford

Larry D Rigby

Eric Steckel

Steven Ford

A disposable, in-line heating cassette and apparatus for raising the temperature of fluids. The cassette comprises a spacer defining a sinuous or serpentine flow pathway interposed between flexible foils and mounted on a frame. The frame comprises inlet and outlet tubes and related input and output ports which communicate with the serpentine path. Juxtaposed heating plates in direct contact with the cassette substantially contact the entire heating surface of the foils, providing a highly efficient thermal path from the heating plate to the foil, and then to the fluid. The heating blocks have several electrically conductive strips thereon for generating a gradation of heat energy such that more heat energy is available for transfer at the inlet end than the outlet end of the serpentine flow path. The strips are arranged on the heating plates immediately over and under the serpentine flow path and are divided into contiguous perpendicular sections, each section having a corresponding closest parallel section with a conductor separation distance therebetween.

In-line fluid heating apparatus with gradation of heat energy from inlet

An endoscopic probe

A multi-functional endoscopic probe apparatus to selectively apply either a low or high frequency voltage to cut and cauterize. The apparatus has an elongated multi-lumen tube that is attached to a pistol grip having a multiplicity of functions contained thereon. The multi-lumen tube has a first lumen for the passage of either a high or a low pressure irrigation stream therethrough, a second lumen for suction to remove excess fluid and debris, and a third lumen for the passage of a slidably extendable and retractable electro-surgical cutting tip. The pistol grip handle has a wheel which enables the surgeon to rotate the multi-lumen tube containing the surgical cutting tip relative to the pistol grip. A plurality of push-button valves enable the selective application a negative pressure for withdrawing excess fluids and removing incident tissue debris from the surgical site and to operatively apply a flood irrigation stream or a precise irrigation stream to the surgical site to wash and cleanse the tissue. A multi-position electric switch directs either a low or a high frequency voltage to an electro-surgical cutting tip in order to cut and/or cauterized the tissue in contact therewith.

Multi-functional endoscopic probe apparatus

An apparatus for heating parenteral fluids for intravenous delivery to a patient. The apparatus includes a disposable cassette which in one presently preferred embodiment is made up of a unitary member which is divided to form a serpentine flow path by a plurality of path separators. Thin, flexible metallic foil membranes are sealingly joined to the unitary member on the upper and bottom surfaces thereof to form an enclosed, fluid-tight serpentine flow path between the plurality of path separators. The entire periphery of the unitary member and the thin, flexible heat conductive foil membranes are sealingly held by a framework. The disposable cassette slides between first and second heating blocks which contact the thin, flexible heat conductive foil membranes so as to provide heat transfer to fluid flowing in the serpentine flow path. The heating blocks are designed to provide a gradation of heat energy such that more heat energy is available for transfer to the parenteral fluid at the inlet end of the serpentine flow path than is available for transfer to the parenteral fluid at the outlet end of the serpentine flow path.

Growing community of inventors

Farmington, UT, United States of America

Dixon Ford