Point of care radioactive material stranding systems

摘要

A point-of-care seed stranding device for automating assembly of brachytherapy seed strands for implantation in patients. The device includes a number of features to reduce the potential for mistakes by the user, as well as to reduce the potential for damaging the radioactive seeds during the stranding process. Tactile feedback may be provided to prevent exertion of too much force in the packing step of the stranding process, as well as to indicate that the seed and/or strand cartridges are empty and need to be replaced. The device may also include a mechanism for holding seeds or spacers in place to allow automated packing of seeds or spacers having corresponding geometries. The device may also be provided with a seed counter which can be employed to preset the number of seeds in a strand and which disables the device from dispensing or packing additional seeds once the preset number of seeds has been packed into the strand. Also, methods for automated assembly of seed strands including the steps of setting the number of seeds, dispensing seeds and spacers, packing seeds and spacers and transferring assembled strands to another device.

主权项

1. A system for preparation of strands of radioisotope seeds and spacers, comprising:
a seed cartridge receiving structure; a spacer cartridge receiving structure; a user-actuated apparatus for dispensing seeds and spacers from cartridges located in said seed and spacer cartridge receiving structures and preparation of a strand from said dispensed seeds and spacers in a strand assembly section; an alignment mechanism for aligning said seeds and spacers to permit assembly of strands from seeds and spacers having end portions adapted to mechanically interact to hold said seeds and spacers together in said strand, wherein said alignment mechanism comprises a seed channel inlet having a diameter less than the outside diameter of the larger of a spacer or a seed outside diameter; and further comprising a mechanism to prevent said strand from being dispensed from a seed stranding section including a seed counter to prevent dispensing of more than a predetermined number of seeds, wherein the seed counter counts each dispensed seed.