CATHETER WITH EXPANDABLE PROBE

摘要

This invention is an expandable electrode array (18) mountable to the distal end of a catheter (10). The expandable array includes a plurality of adjacent elongated segments (20) preformed with proximal, medial and distal hinge portions wherein at least one electrode (22) is mounted on at least one of the segments (20). Each of the plurality of peripheral segments (20) is integrally formed with a resilient conductive longitudinal core encapsulated in an electrically insulated material. A deployment mandrel (26) is operatively connected to each of the respective peripheral segments (20) whereby movement of the mandrel (26) in the proximal direction causes the respective peripheral segments (20) to bend outwardly about the proximal, medial and distal hinge portions to radially expand the segments (20) relative to one another so that the electrodes (22) moves to a predetermined transverse coplanar orientation.