Disposable Cartridge, Apparatus and System for the Blood Treatment
The invention relates to a disposable cartridge usable for a blood treatment apparatus provided with at least one frontal access pump; the cartridge consists of at least one duct portion whose structure and position, by approaching the disposable cartridge to the apparatus, determine the association of said duct portion with said pump, so as to complete the apparatus in order to use it.
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The present invention relates to a disposable cartridge or module, an apparatus and a system for blood treatment.
The present invention is suitable for being used in a medical/hospital field and, in particular, it relates to the problem of the setting of the machines used for dialysis, haemofiltration, decapneization or blood oxygenation and, generally speaking, for all the apparatus which comprise one or more peristaltic pumps and/or syringe pumps and which need complicated operations for placing the underpump tubes in their correct operating positions, for placing in their holders blood filters, oxygenators and other circuit components connected to one another by means of a complex flexible tube connection network, drip caps, devices for eliminating blood blisters, pressure sensors, temperature sensors, heaters and so on.
One of the aims of the present invention is simplifying the functioning and the start of well known procedures in a shorter time, limiting the risk of assembly mistakes; moreover, it is possible to limit the need of highly qualified personnel and to obtain advantages such as a reduction of the priming volume thanks to the optimization and to the shortness of connections and to use rigid connection tubes without toxic plasticizers (phthalates) which are more biocompatible in general, as well to obtain a reduced hemolysis due to the functioning of the peristaltic pump; said pump, as will be described, allows a much more linear and homogeneous exit flux than in current peristaltic devices as well as an extremely reduced hemolysis. Therefore, the aim of the present invention is eliminating the above mentioned inconveniences.
According to the invention, these results have been achieved by adopting the idea of a disposable cartridge, an apparatus and a system for the blood treatment having the features described in the independent claims. Further features are the subject of the dependent claims.
One of the advantages of the present invention is that the preparation procedures and the starting of the apparatus for blood treatment are remarkably simplified; the risk of mistakes is basically eliminated; this apparatus can be used by personnel which is not highly qualified and the priming is remarkably reduced; it offers a system consisting of a disposable cartridge characterized by a high biocompatibility and a reduced hemolysis Each technician who works in this field will understand these advantages and further advantages of the present invention thanks to the following description and to the enclosed drawings as a practical exemplification of the invention, which should not be considered in a limitative sense, wherein:
A possible example of a system consisting of an apparatus and of a disposable cartridge or module according to the invention is described in the following, with an initial reference to
The term module or cartridge used in the present description refers to a disposable container 1 with at least one rigid wall or portion 2 which contains: the components necessary for the treatment procedure and for the corresponding internal connections; pre-positioned connections or connections which are assembled with those external to the patient as well as for any sub-containers for waste products to be eliminated; the mechanical support of the under-pump tubes (understood as a reaction plane of the frontal access peristaltic pumps contained in the base apparatus for blood treatment). All the internal components of the disposable cartridge and the external connections are preassembled, so as to be ready for use.
In particular, the disposable cartridge 1 which can be made of transparent and rigid plastic material, is provided with fixing means for apparatus 3 (also called base 3 in the present description) which allow an operating connection capable of exchanging data with the temperature and pressure sensors, with air bubble detectors, blood blisters detectors and so on, but also of allowing the liquids contained or passing through disposable cartridge 1 to be moved by means of a system of “frontal access peristaltic pumps” which do not require a manual operation for their preparation and can function as soon as they are connected to cartridge 1.
Cartridge 1 can be provided with an identification element which allows a given cartridge to be associated with a corresponding treatment procedure. For example, disposable cartridge 1 can be provided with an identification element which allows the association of a given cartridge with a corresponding treatment procedure. For example, disposable cartridge 1 can be provided with a chip or with a similar device interacting with a corresponding reader placed on base 3. The reader placed on base 3 can emit a corresponding consensus or error signal and, if necessary, indicate, for example in a screen, the parameters of the treatment to be executed. This allows a further reduction of possible errors when preparing the appliance for blood treatment. In
In the non limitative example shown in the figures, base 3 is provided with three front access peristaltic pumps 31, 32, 33. Three corresponding tube portions 11, 12, 13 are present on disposable cartridge 1 which are in contact with said pumps 31, 32, 33, when disposable cartridge 1 is associated with base 3. In practice, in the non-limitative example shown in the drawings, disposable cartridge 1 features on one side (in the example the side with a greater surface) some tube segments 11, 12, 13 projecting from disposable cartridge 1. These tube segments are positioned adjacent to the disposable cartridge itself.
Some pressure or temperature transducers or transducers for other values to be measured, as well as other tube segments 16, 17 on which some clamps act, oxygen connectors or similar devices can be positioned near these tubes. According to the type of therapy to be carried out, disposable cartridge 1 is duly provided with suitable components such as filtering devices, measurers and so on. These devices are already well known and will not be described in detail. The transducers may consist of membranes acting on corresponding detectors positioned on the base, which are capable of exchanging data with the detectors. In practice, the membranes can define a physical connection (pneumatic or hydraulic) with the corresponding internal detector on the base.
With reference to the example illustrated, disposable cartridge 1 is provided with a filtering device for blood or haemofilter 21, with an hoxygenator device or decapneizator 22, with an oxygen connector 28 featuring a corresponding delivering device 38 positioned on base 3, as well as with two ducts 24 and 25 which allow the entry and exit connection with the patient under treatment according to a well known method. Once the disposable cartridge suitable for the therapy to be carried out has been chosen, by applying disposable cartridge 1 to appliance 3, frontal access pumps 31, 32, 33 contained in the apparatus will be coupled to tube segments 11, 12, 13 containing the liquids to be moved which are part of disposable cartridge 1; at the same time, pressure transducers 15 will be in contact with corresponding detectors 35 on base 3, the oxygen connector 28 will be coupled to the opening 38 of the delivering device, the “clamp” 39 of base 3 will be positioned in contact with tube segment 16 which is to be occluded, bubble and blood blister detectors will be positioned on the tube segment adjacent to it (the example schematically shows an air bubble detector acting on tube portion 16 and a blood blister detector 37 acting on tube portion 17) and the apparatus for filtering and removing carbon dioxide, at this point, after carrying out up the only connection of the disposable cartridge, can be started.
The apparatus or base is usually provided with a screen, which displays the possible procedures according to the disposable cartridge actually assembled, the parameters set, the correct functioning of the disposable cartridge, possible alarms and the possibility for the operator to vary the above parameters. It is possible to add accessories such as printers, connections to the network and so on. In
Disposable cartridge 1 can contain the components for measuring the different values, the connection tubes, the “active” components such as haemo-concentrators, oxygenators, haemofilters, dyalisis filters, possible control components such as droppers, de-bubblers, sub-containers to be filled with drugs (for example heparin).
With reference to the example of
As said above, frontal access peristaltic pumps allow the liquids to be moved through the tubes they are in contact with, without the action of the operator necessary in traditional pumps.
The example of
In particular, for a better description of the functioning,
In an alternative embodiment shown in
The examples of
An alternative of said rotary peristaltic pump is schematically shown in
The disposable cartridge which can be used for the examples of
Tube portion 12, which is schematically shown with dashed lines in
In this last embodiment, pump 30 is a rotary pump and the pressure elements are not the hammers 300, 301 described above with reference to the examples of
The basic concept of the present invention is that of manufacturing a frontal access pump which can be coupled to a disposable cartridge, in which the position and the structure of the various active and passive components allows their direct coupling to the corresponding parts of the base apparatus. So, the base apparatus can be provided with one or more frontal access peristaltic pumps, with pressure elements which can be coupled to one or more tube portions presented by the disposable cartridge, as said pumps can be “rotary” or “linear” pumps as specified above. In the same way, the base apparatus can be provided with one or more frontal access peristaltic pumps provided with a rotor and mobile walls, (or with a “collapsable” rotor) which can be coupled with one or more corresponding tube portions whose structure allows their positioning around the rotor when the disposable cartridge is couple to the apparatus.
In all the above non limitative cases the apparatus and the disposable cartridge can be provided with additional pumps, ducts, measuring and filtering devices, oxygenators and so on, whose structure allows the immediate starting of the apparatus without the complex preparation procedures of the well known technique.
The control devices of the elements described above, which are shown in the enclosed drawings, are known to the technicians who work in this field and, for this, reason, they have not been described in detail in order to simplify their explanation. Moreover, the execution details may vary as regards the shape the size, the arrangement of the elements, the kind of material used, but they are within the limits of the solution adopted and within the limits of the protection offered by the present patent.
Claims
1-16. (canceled)
17. A disposable cartridge for a blood treatment apparatus having at least one frontal access pump, said disposable cartridge comprising:
- at least one tube portion whose structure and position, by approaching said disposable cartridge to the apparatus, determine an association of said tube portion with the pump, so as to complete the blood treatment apparatus in order to use the apparatus, wherein:
- the frontal access pump is provided with at least one hammer element, and
- said disposable cartridge further comprises at least one mechanically rigid wall which defines a reaction plane for the at least one hammer element.
18. The disposable cartridge of claim 17, wherein the frontal access pump is provided with a plurality of hammer elements positioned along a rectilinear stretch, and a corresponding tube portion, fixed to said disposable cartridge and on which the hammer elements act, extends linearly.
19. The disposable cartridge of claim 17, wherein said tube portion on which the pump acts comprises two valve elements positioned respectively downstream and upstream from an action area of the at least one hammer element.
20. The disposable cartridge of claim 17, wherein said disposable cartridge further comprises a plurality of components necessary for a blood treatment procedure and corresponding internal connections.
21. The disposable cartridge of claim 17, further comprising an identification element adapted to be univocally associated with a corresponding identification element of the blood treatment apparatus.
22. The disposable cartridge of claim 17, wherein said at least one tube portion comprises at least one duct formed by a coupling of two plates, at least one of which being grooved.
23. An apparatus for blood treatment adapted to be equipped with a disposable cartridge, said apparatus comprising:
- at least one frontal access peristaltic pump adapted to interact with a corresponding tube portion presented by the disposable cartridge, wherein said at least one pump comprises at least one hammer element adapted to interact with at least one tube portion presented by the disposable cartridge, the disposable cartridge being provided with at least one mechanically rigid wall which defines a reaction plane for said at least one hammer element.
24. The apparatus of claim 23, further comprising a cam element which moves said at least one hammer element.
25. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein said at least one pump is adapted to push said at least one hammer element against the at least one tube portion in order to compress the at least one tube portion, and a stroke performed by said at least one hammer element does not completely crush the at least one tube portion.
26. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein said pump further comprises two additional hammer elements which are positioned respectively downstream and upstream of said at least one hammer element.
27. The apparatus of claim 27, further comprising:
- a rotor; and
- at least one mobile wall which defines a reaction surface for said rotor, said at least one mobile wall being adapted to move so as to allow the introduction of the at least one tube portion presented by the disposable cartridge between said rotor and said at least one wall when the disposable cartridge approaches said apparatus.
28. A blood treatment system comprising:
- an apparatus for blood treatment having at least one frontal access peristaltic pump; and
- a disposable cartridge in which active components, passive components, and connection components are positioned and structured in such a way as to be coupled directly to corresponding parts of said apparatus when said disposable cartridge approaches said apparatus,
- wherein said frontal access pump comprises at least one hammer element and said disposable cartridge comprises at least on mechanically rigid wall which defines a reaction plane for said at least one hammer element.
Type: Application
Filed: Mar 29, 2006
Publication Date: Mar 26, 2009
Applicant: Medical Service S.R.L. (Salerno)
Inventor: Canio Caramuta (Salerno)
Application Number: 11/887,168
International Classification: F04B 43/12 (20060101); F04B 43/08 (20060101);