ANGIOPLASTY CATHETER WITH INTEGRAL FIBER OPTIC

摘要

A balloon-type catheter (10) is provided with an integral optical system utilizing illuminating fibers (48) made of optical grade plastic, and an imaging bundle (50) of many very small, flexible, fused glass fibers or pixels (60) doped to increase the index of refraction and cladded together by doped glass (62) with a much lower index of refraction than the pixels. A gradient index objective lens (52) in the form of a cylinder of optical quality glass is attached to the distal end of the imaging fiber bundle. An inflation lumen (22) is provided in the catheter for inflating the balloon (24), and a separate lumen (18) conducts optically-transparent liquids to flush the field of view. The resulting catheter can be very small in diameter, is very flexible and is sufficiently inexpensive to be practically disposable.