Abstract: An integrated catheter assembly for enabling diverse in situ therapies includes a catheter with an irrigation fluid lumen, a distal tip portion that acts as a hemostat and a needle for injection therapy that extends through the catheter lumen and a lumen in the distal tip portion. A needle hub structure carries the catheter and provides a sealing entrance for a needle that can be displaced between extended and retracted positions. The needle and electrodes are electrically isolated. The apparatus provides a physician the options of irrigating tissue, cauterizing tissue or injecting tissue without the need for removing the apparatus from the working channel of an endoscope.

Abstract: Apparatus for use in the diagnosis and treatment of strictures in a biliary duct, urinary tract or pancreatic tract. The apparatus includes a dual lumen catheter device. One lumen size is sized to accommodate a guidewire. A second, parallel lumen has a non-circular cross-section and carries a cytology brush at one end that couples through an operator to a manipulator at another end. The cytology brush has an effective diameter that is greater than the diameter of the catheter device. Brush cytology samples are obtained without removing the guidewire from a stricture and without introducing any relative motion between the guidewire and the catheter. As the cytology brush is retracted into the non-circular lumen, its bristles compact around the operator for storage within the lumen. A predetermined arrangement of markers at the distal end of the catheter facilitates the measurement of stricture length by direct endoscopic visualization.

Abstract: A catheter includes a flexible elongated catheter body that defines a needle-receiving, or probe-receiving, lumen, a retractable tissue-penetrable needle, or probe, and an electrode mounted on the distal portion of the catheter body. The needle provides a fluid passage for introducing fluid into tissue to permit the introduction of sclerotic agents for enhancing electrocoagulation of the tissue, heat-responsive drugs for improving the bonding to tissue surfaces, or vaso-constrictor drugs. The probe can also have a passage for fluid. The electrode can provide bipolar electro-coagulation of tissue in combination with an additional electrode mounted on the catheter body, or alternatively, the electrode can be employed in combination with either the needle or probe to establish a bipolar electro-coagulation path through tissue. The needle, or probe, in combination with an external electrode can be used to provide unipolar electro-coagulation, or ablation.

Abstract: An exchange guidewire for positioning and exchanging medical catheters within a bodily passage during a medical procedure which uses an endoscope. The guidewire includes a wire of a length sufficient for exchange of the catheters through the endoscope, a radiopaque flexible coil fixed to the distal end of the wire, and a pattern of stripes endoscopically discernable along the guidewire. Optionally, a shrink-wrap, low-friction sleeve jackets the guidewire, the pattern of indicia being endoscopically discernable along the length of the jacketed guidewire. The position of the exchange guidewire indicia relative to the endoscope optical lens may be monitored by viewing the stripes endoscopically. A method of positioning and exchanging medical catheters within a bodily passage during a medical procedure which uses an endoscope is also disclosed.

Abstract: An integrated catheter assembly for enabling diverse in situ therapies includes a catheter with an irrigation fluid lumen, a distal tip portion that acts as a hemostat and a needle for injection therapy that extends through the catheter lumen and a lumen in the distal tip portion. A needle hub structure carries the catheter and provides a sealing entrance for a needle that can be displaced between extended and retracted positions. The needle and electrodes are electrically isolated. The apparatus provides a physician the options of irrigating tissue, cauterizing tissue or injecting tissue without the need for removing the apparatus from the working channel of an endoscope.

Abstract: Apparatus and method for the examination of specimens, particularly human tissue in vivo, by pulse-echo ultrasonic methods. To compensate for the variable and unpredictable attenuation of examining signals when reflected from different targets within the specimen, the echoes are processed -- for instance by frequency analysis -- to produce at least two sets of echo-amplitude information. These sets of information are in turn processed to produce a quantity indicative of the attenuation actually undergone by signals in examining each particular target. This quantity may then be applied to the "A" - scan, "B" - scan or other displays of the echoes of the examining signals to compensate them for the effects of varying attenuation. The apparatus may also include similar uncompensated displays and displays directly representing the attenuation co-efficients of the regions of tissue under scan; comparison of these with the compensated displays may reveal further useful information.