Surgery – Means for introducing or removing material from body for... – With means for cutting – scarifying – or vibrating tissue
Patent
1997-09-15
2000-12-19
Kennedy, Sharon
Surgery
Means for introducing or removing material from body for...
With means for cutting, scarifying, or vibrating tissue
606127, A61B 1720, A61B 1722
Patent
active
061621935
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to an ultrasound probe, and particularly to a defocusing device for an ultrasound generator forming and delimiting an outgoing ultrasound field, for instance in the field of medical applications.
PRIOR ART
In connection with the treatment of glaucoma, there is a general desire to treat this disease without necessarily resorting to direct surgical operation on the eye. It is known that in a glaucoma condition, small particles are gradually clogging the filter, which forms the so called trabecular meshwork, thereby increasing the pressure in the eye caused by the continuing building up of the eye aqueous fluid, that can not be drained in a natural manner, thus causing harmful pressure to the eye. Apart from the usual treatment by means of using various kinds of eye drops, there are a number of patent documents describing different instruments for the treatment of glaucoma, to mention among others WO 91/12046 and WO 93/20783, which are related to transplantation of a drainage device into the eye, to in an artificial manner control the pressure in the eye. A number of documents, for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,928,697 and 4,945,913 describe devices used to measure the pressure in the eye without making direct contact to the eye itself. Furthermore there are other devices described which comprise ultrasound probes which are surgically applied into the eye to remove unwanted tissue. Examples of such devices are: U.S. Pat. No. 3,528,410, U.S. Pat. No. 3,857,387 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,942,519.
A new method, which recently has been proposed, is based upon by means of ultrasound having a specially designed field form generated, so to say, to from outside the eye shake out the particles clogging the drainage path of the eye aqueous fluid. In order to achieve this, an ultrasound probe is required being able to produce a suitable ultrasound field, which may be concentrated just around the trabecular meshwork such that during the treatment it will not affect or damage other parts of the sensitive eye.
There are known many different forms of ultrasound generators. Examples of such generators appear for instance in the German patent documents: DE 945 417, DE-1 120 784, DE-4 011 017, DE-4 034 533, DE-4 122 590 and DE-4 136 004. The first one of these generators (DE 945 417) was disclosed already in 1956, while the last one (DE-4 136 004) dates back to 1991. DE 945 417 discloses an absorption cover, preferably of felted material which can attenuate production of standing waves. DE-1 120 784 discloses a membrane consisting, for example, of an electromechanical active ceramic material, like barium titanate, for transmission of ultrasound waves from the generator to a medium.
DE-4 011 017 discloses a device for generating focused shock waves provided with two-sided shock wave sources, whereby the sources are of different types and focusing takes place by moving the sources in relation to each other.
From the last three mentioned patent documents (DE-4 011 017, DE-4 122 590 and DE-4 136 004) DE-4 034 533 discloses a shock wave source with focusing of the generated pressure pulses to a convex lens serving as a focusing zone, whereby the upper face of the convex lens forming the output sound surface presents a form different from the necessary form for focusing of the pressure pulses.
DE-4 122 590 additionally discloses a shock wave generator having a focusing means, whereby at the same time there are means, the defocusing action of which is adjustable and less than the action of the focusing means. The disclosed design is primarily intended for splitting up renal stones whereby its purpose is to create a considerably larger focusing zone in order to manage splitting up large stones. This design is not applicable for the treatment of the eye according to the suggested method.
Finally DE-4 136 004 discloses a generator for generation of acoustic waves with a liquid lens adjusting the focal distance and thereby moving the focal point of the acoustic waves. The design moreover discloses a
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Forskarpatent I Uppsala AB
Kennedy Sharon
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