Terumo Kabushiki Kaisha

Tetsu Yamaguchi

Yasukazu Harada

Kazuyuki Takeda

Shori Kindaichi

Hiroyuki Yagami

A coating method and a coating apparatus are used to apply coating material to struts of a medical device (e.g., stent) which bound openings. The method involves optically scanning the medical device to produce position information identifying positions of the struts, using the position information to calculate a predetermined position, setting an applying manner to apply the coating material based on the predetermined position, setting an applying path accommodating the applying manner, and relatively moving the medical device and an applicator head along the applying route and path while dispensing the coating material from the applicator head and applying the coating material to the struts.

Coating method and coating apparatus

An ultrasound catheter includes a transducer unit used for observation of the inside of an organism, observation lumens in which the transducer unit is disposed and which extend in the direction of insertion into the organism, a first guide wire lumen provided substantially in parallel to the observation lumens and on the distal end side in the insertion direction in relation to the transducer unit and through which a guide wire preliminarily brought to the inside of the organism is passed, and a second guide wire lumen provided on an extension line of the first guide wire lumen and on the proximal end side in the insertion direction in relation to the transducer unit and through which the guide wire is passed.

Catheter

An ultrasonic probe includes a sheath having a distal end insertable in a body cavity or a lumen, a proximal end having an injection port allowing an ultrasonic wave propagating liquid to be injected through the injection port, and a passage extending from the proximal end to the distal end, a drive shaft, having a distal end and a proximal end, for transmitting a mechanical drive force from the proximal end to the distal end, the drive shaft being disposed in the passage of the sheath, and an ultrasonic transducer provided at the distal end of the drive shaft, wherein a gap between the inner surface of the passage and the outer periphery of the drive shaft on the distal end side of the sheath is smaller than that on the proximal end side of the sheath. Such an ultrasonic probe is advantageous in efficiently discharging bubbles remaining in the sheath with less water flow, and also reducing the diameter of the ultrasonic probe while keeping a high quality of an ultrasonic tomogram.

Growing community of inventors

Fujinomiya, Japan

Yasukazu Harada