I.V. catheter assembly with automatic cannula tip guard

摘要

A catheter assembly comprising a catheter attached to a catheter hub, a cannula insertable into the catheter through the catheter hub and a tip guard providing automatic protection of the cannula tip and automatic locking and releasing of the tip guard form the catheter hub. The tip guard includes a base and a plurality of resilient fingers extending from the base which are adapted to flex radially outwardly to allow the cannula to be inserted in the hub and which return to the spring biased position when the cannula is withdrawn from the catheter into the guard to secure the catheter within the guard. A detent on the distal ends of the fingers engages corresponding recesses in the catheter hub to lock the tip guard in the hub when the cannula is inserted through the guard.