Surgery – Means and methods for collecting body fluids or waste material – Receptacle attached to or inserted within body to receive...
Patent
1996-02-21
1998-03-31
Clarke, Robert A.
Surgery
Means and methods for collecting body fluids or waste material
Receptacle attached to or inserted within body to receive...
553854, 55482, 55486, 604338, A61F 544
Patent
active
057332711
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention concerns a valve device or filter house which can be used, for example, in stoma bags, especially ileostomy bags, which in one embodiment have an extended gas transport path, and which are self-closing when the moisture in the filter exceeds a certain limit.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Surgical procedures such as colostomy, ileostomy and urostomy, where a permanent opening is created between the body's internal cavity and the environment, apart from the natural orifices, makes it necessary for the patient to permanently wear a bag for the collection of bodily fluid, possibly faeces and faecal particles. This is necessary because the body's natural orifices have shut-off musculature, such as sphincter musculature, which is subject to voluntary control, while a surgical stoma will directly discharge bowel contents/urine without the person having very much control over the process. The composition of the discharges in the case of bowel stomata will be dependent on at which point in the intestine the operation was performed, so that, e.g., in the case of a colostomy the discharge will be of a thicker, almost normal consistency, since a part of the water reabsorption capacity will be intact, while in the case of ileostomy the discharge will include particles of different sizes in a thin liquid. In both cases intestinal gas, which is formed continuously in amounts from 50-1200 ml per day, measured as the amount which passes through the anus, will be passed out into the bag together with the bowel contents. Thus in the case of stomata, a considerable amount of gas could be passed out into the bag every day.
Intestinal gas or flatus (intestinal gas which emerges through the anus) contains nitrogen, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, methane and trace elements in varying amounts. Compositions have been measured (Kodama and Miura, J. Japan. Soc. Nutr. 2:149-152, 1949) such as 13-34% CO.sub.2, 19-26% CH.sub.4, 20-27% H.sub.2, 17-48% N.sub.2 and less than 1% of indole, skatol, volatile amines and hydrogen sulphide. The latter constitute the malodorous substances in flatus and it is claimed that H.sub.2 S can be detected by the sense of smell in as low a concentration as one part H.sub.2 S in 100 million (0.01 dpm). Thus a bad small can constitute a substantial disadvantage when wearing a stoma bag.
Since substantial amounts of malodorous intestinal gas can thus be produced and passed out into a stoma bag, this bag would rapidly become inflated if it was not provided with an outlet valve, and due to the smell this valve also requires a filter which removes odour by absorption, as it contains a deodorant material. A filter of this kind has to provide a sufficient contact area between the odour-absorbing material and the gas for adequate absorption of the odour, and the filter must be able to prevent or reduce the formation of moisture in the filter because a moist filter does not absorb gas. In the base of ileostomies, the build-up of moisture in the filter constitutes a particularly serious problem compared with colostomy, since the discharge is mainly liquid. Thus during the night it is difficult to avoid exposing the filter to liquid.
Attempts have been made to solve these problems in a number of patents, such as NO-PS 139029, 154904, 161293, SE-PS 454239 and DE-PS 3036009.
The prior art comprises the use of active carbon in the filter device with various designs for extending the gas flow path in the filter, such as the case in which the valve device constitutes a plug where the gas circulates in winding channels formed in the actual filter or where the valve device has standing walls which force the gas to circulate on a plane parallel to the valve device's outer top, which is parallel to the bag's surface and thereby increases the gas flow path approximately five times (NO-PS 139029), or where the filter is oblong with an inlet opening for gas and an outlet opening near each end (NO-PS 161293) or where the filter is composed of a gas channel round the periphery of the related stoma
REFERENCES:
patent: 4449970 (1984-05-01), Bevan et al.
patent: 4938749 (1990-07-01), Jensen
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