METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CLOSING AN OPENING IN THICK, MOVING TISSUE

摘要

A device for placing sutures through a section of tissue, especially a section of thick and/or moving tissue. A tissue welting tip has a trough for forming a welt in a tissue section. An alignment guide is pivotally mounted in the distal end adjacent to the trough. The device has an opening receiving a guide wire and an elongated sleeveslidably engagable with the guide wire there through. An expandable tissue engaging member on the sleeve expands from a collapsed configuration having a diameter small enough to pass through the opening in the tip to an expanded configuration having a diameter large enough to engage a tissue section and urge it into the trough to form a welt in the tissue section and a retractable needle extendable through at least two portions of a tissue section while the tissue section is engaged with the trough.