The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 17, 2014
Filed:
May. 03, 2006
John F. Heanue, San Jose, CA (US);
Joseph A. Heanue, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Brian P. Wilfley, Los Altos, CA (US);
Augustus P. Lowell, Durham, NH (US);
John F. Heanue, San Jose, CA (US);
Joseph A. Heanue, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Brian P. Wilfley, Los Altos, CA (US);
Augustus P. Lowell, Durham, NH (US);
Covidien LP, Mansfield, MA (US);
Abstract
A system and method for optical lymph node mapping. The system is useful for guiding sentinel lymph node biopsy surgeries. A contrast agent that includes a fluorescent dye is injected near the site of a malignancy. The contrast agent drains into the lymphatic system, collecting in a sentinel node or nodes. The system utilizes one or more low-power continuous-wave lasers or light-emitting diodes modulated with a digital code sequence to probe the tissue suspected of containing the sentinel node. When the light is incident near the sentinel node, it will excite fluorescence from the dye. A portion of the scattered fluorescent light is captured with one or more photo-detectors. A correlation of the photo-detector signal and the digital code sequence is calculated to produce an estimate of the distribution of flight times for photons traveling from a given source to a given detector. The flight time distributions are used along with the measured amplitudes to reconstruct a map of contrast agent location within the tissue.