Vibrating guidewire

摘要

The invention is directed to a hand held vibration device which imparts reciprocating motion in a guidewire while leaving the guidewire free to rotate about its longitudinal axis, to facilitate advancement of the guidewire through a highly occluded blood vessel. The vibrating device is provided with a lock ring for reversibly preventing guidewire rotation without effecting guidewire reciprocation, and the reciprocation length of the device may be varied. The length the guidewire extends past the distal end of a delivery catheter may be varied from controls on the device which do not require guidewire detachment from the reciprocating mechanism. The device may be used with or without a delivery catheter provided with a curved distal end, the curvature of which can be varied while the catheter is inside the patient.