Method and barrier for limiting fluid movement through a tissue rent
A method and device provides for limiting fluid movement through a rent in a membranous tissue by forming a biocompatible and biodegradable barrier at the site of the rent. The barrier is formed by inserting into the rent a plug that includes connected water-swellable parts, so that within a short time following placement of the plug at the site the swellable parts expand in situ to form the barrier and occlude the rent. As fluids near the site are taken up by the swellable material, the material expands rapidly to fill the rent, engaging the marginal surfaces of the membrane near the edges of rent and forming a secure barrier at the site. All the materials of the plug are biocompatible and, over a period of time that allows for healing of the rent, all the components of the barrier are completely degraded without leaving any residual material at the site.
Latest Patents:
- METHODS AND COMPOSITIONS FOR RNA-GUIDED TREATMENT OF HIV INFECTION
- IRRIGATION TUBING WITH REGULATED FLUID EMISSION
- RESISTIVE MEMORY ELEMENTS ACCESSED BY BIPOLAR JUNCTION TRANSISTORS
- SIDELINK COMMUNICATION METHOD AND APPARATUS, AND DEVICE AND STORAGE MEDIUM
- SEMICONDUCTOR STRUCTURE HAVING MEMORY DEVICE AND METHOD OF FORMING THE SAME
This application is a Divisional of U.S. application Ser. No. 10/114,662, filed 1 Apr. 2002.
BACKGROUNDThis invention relates to limiting fluid movement through rents in body tissues, and particularly the invention relates to providing a barrier for fluid movement through a puncture in a membranous tissue such as the dura mater.
For many medical procedures, access to an internal body cavity is made by way of a puncture or other opening in the wall or membrane enclosing the body cavity. Following such a procedure, fluids or fluid-borne materials may pass through the opening or rent, and complications may result. Reliable methods are needed for limiting movement of fluids or fluid-borne materials across openings in membranes enclosing body cavities, to mitigate such complications.
The mammalian brain and spinal cord are closely invested by a membrane termed the pia mater, and are surrounded by a thick inelastic membrane termed the dura mater. A delicate membrane termed the arachnoid envelops the brain and spinal cord between the dura mater and the pia mater. The arachnoid is separated from the pia mater by the so-called intrathecal or subarachnoid space, which is filled with cerebrospinal fluid (“CSF”). The intrathecal space is accessed clinically, usually by a percutaneous needle puncture through the dura, for a wide variety of purposes, including collection of CSF for chemical and cytological analysis and delivery of therapeutic agents. Percutaneous needle puncture through the dura is one of the most common procedures performed in clinical medicine.
Intraspinal administration of anesthetics and analgesics has been performed for over one hundred years; it has in recent years come into increasing use in obstetrics, urology, and orthopedics, and it is now a mainstay of therapy in the rapidly growing field of pain management.
Diagnostic myelography is commonly employed prior to all types of spinal surgery, entailing injection of radiographic contrast material into the intrathecal space. The intrathecal space also provides a depot for administration of chemotherapy, and rapid advances in neurobiology promise a range of new therapies directed at degenerative central nervous system conditions. Diseases such as multiple sclerosis, amyelotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease), Alzheimer's disease, and others, will likely generate increased need for intrathecal access to permit delivery of drugs that may not easily cross the blood-brain barrier.
Headache is the most common complication of dural puncture. The pathogenesis of post dural puncture headache (PDPH) is generally believed to be related to ongoing CSF leak at the site of the dural puncture, although the mechanism of pain is not clear. Low CSF pressure may result in traction on pain sensitive structures, especially where the subject is in the upright position, caused by loss of the cushioning effect of the normal CSF volume. Vascular dilatation in response to low CSF volume may also be a factor, and neurohumeral responses have been implicated as well. Whatever the cause or causes may be, the reported incidence of PDPH ranges from two percent to 75 percent, depending on a variety of epidemiological factors, including the age, gender, and medical condition of the patient. Women are more likely than men to suffer PDPH, and the rate of PDPH is more likely in younger than in older adults; and it is therefore unsurprising that PDPH is a significant problem following spinal anesthesia in the obstetrical population.
Technical factors may play an important role in generation of PDPH, including needle diameter, needle tip configuration, preparation of the skin, and characteristics of injected material. Incidence of PDPH can be reduced by employing a smaller needle (gauge 25 or higher) or by employing a needle having a “pencil tip” with a side port; and some practitioners have recommended orienting the needle in parallel with the dural fibers. The use of small needles as an approach to reducing the occurrence of PDPH is limited by the greater technical difficulty (especially for non-anesthesiologists) of achieving successful dural puncture using smaller needles; and viscosity of some injectates (myelography dies, for example) is too high to permit the use of smaller needles. Even where optimal technique is employed in low risk populations, the incidence of PDPH is reported as five to 20 percent or more in most studies.
The pain due to PDPH is typically severe and long-lasting, and it can be completely disabling in some instances for days to weeks following the dural puncture procedure. PDPH pain can be relieved by maintaining the subject in a supine position, and patients often are confined to bed for the duration of the headache episode. Symptoms associated with PDPH include nausea and vomiting which predisposes the patient to dehydration and impairs the patient's ability to replace lost CSF, prolonging the painful syndrome. Visual disturbances, tinnitus, vertigo, neck stiffness and auditory symptoms all contribute to the disability associated with PDPH. Severe traction on cranial nerves resulting from low CSF pressure can cause significant palsy, particularly of the vith cranial nerve. Traction on intracranial vascular structures can result in potentially fatal intracranial hemorrhage, although this complication is rare. The typical onset of PDPH is 24-48 hours after the procedure, with a duration of three to four days, and approximately 75 percent of patients experience resolution of symptoms within seven days after onset, although it is not unusual for PDPH to last for weeks.
Types of treatment for PDPH generally fall into two categories. Nonspecific, supportive therapies including correction of dehydration and administration of analgesics and anti-emetics are generally sufficient for mild PDPH, in conjunction with maintenance of a supine position at bed rest. Corrective therapies include treatments designed to increase CSF volume and obtund the neurohumeral or vascular cause of the headache. Methylxanthenes such as caffeine and theophylline can constrict cerebral venous channels and promote CSF production, and such agents are often sufficient to control mild cases of PDPH.
The definitive treatment for PDPH, however, is to stop the leak by performing an epidural blood patch. This involves drawing 10-20 cc of sterile autologous blood and administering the blood via a standard epidural access procedure at the same spinal level. In theory, the blood patch halts the flow of CSF from the intrathecal space, reversing the pressure gradient from lumbar spine to cranial vault, and pushes the remaining CSF toward the brain to provide support for the intracranial structures, thereby producing immediate relief. The success rate of the dural blood patch in mitigating PDPH is reported as 85-95 percent. Complications from the dural blood patch procedure are unusual, other than mild low back discomfort and stiffness, but there are case reports of subdural hematoma, abscess formation, arachnoiditis, and even blindness following repeat epidural blood patch. Attempts to employ an epidural blood patch prophylactically have uniformly failed to mitigate PDPH. And the epidural blood patch procedure is highly costly from an economic standpoint.
Accordingly, PDPH continues to be a very troublesome complication of otherwise successful intrathecal access by dural puncture, which may have important implications for the patient's post-operative course. For instance, PDPH following cesarean section results in poorer maternal-infant bonding and inability to breast-feed. Diagnostic lumbar puncture is frequently performed for diagnosis of headache, for example to rule out meningitis, and the presence of PDPH may seriously confound efforts and diagnosis. PDPH is very costly in terms of lost days at work and diminished productivity, and additional days of hospitalization, economically burdening the patient and the employer as well as the health care and health insurance systems.
A need persists for a method of reliably preventing PDPH as a complication of dural puncture procedures.
SUMMARYThe invention provides for limiting fluid movement through a rent in a membranous tissue by forming a biocompatible and biodegradable barrier at the site of the rent. According to the invention, the barrier is formed by inserting into the rent a plug that includes connected water-swellable parts, so that the swellable parts expand in situ to form the barrier and occlude the rent.
The invention can be employed in connection with any of the many procedures in which access to an internal body space is made by way of a puncture in a wall or membrane. Particularly, for example, the invention can be employed prophylactically at the conclusion of a conventional dural access procedure.
The materials of which the plug is made are biocompatible. Generally, as deployed according to the invention, the plug materials do not cause significant cell injury or death; they do not cause an adverse inflammatory response; and they do not cause malignant cellular transformation.
The materials of which the plug is made are biodegradable. Generally, the plug materials are capable of being broken down and removed from the site by normal physiologic and cellular processes within the body of the subject being treated, typically including for example dissolution in the aqueous environment, leukocyte/macrophage macrocytosis, and enzymatic digestion. The degradation products are metabolized or transferred away from the site ultimately through venous and lymphatic channels. Preferably the degradation products and their metabolites are also biocompatible. The plug or barrier materials do not persist permanently at the site, and degradation and removal of residues of the material proceeds to completion over a course of time of weeks or months.
Plugs according to invention can be configured and dimensioned to form barriers in rents having a wide range of dimensions and shapes, and in membranes or walls having a wide range of thicknesses. The swellable parts are provided in a shape and size appropriate to the shape and size of the particular rent.
A plug according to the invention can be deployed by using a stylet to pass the plug within the lumen of a needle or catheter to a point just beyond the tip. The needle or catheter is then withdrawn over the stylet and the plug is left in place at the puncture site. As fluids near the site are taken up by the swellable material, the material expands rapidly to fill the rent, engaging the marginal surfaces of the membrane near the edges of rent and forming a secure barrier at the site. All the materials of the plug are biocompatible and, over a period of time that allows for healing of the rent, all the components of the barrier are completely degraded without leaving any residual material at the site.
Accordingly, in one general aspect the invention features a method for limiting fluid movement through a rent in a membranous tissue, by placing within the rent a plug that includes connected water-swellable parts, so that the swellable parts expand in situ to occlude the rent. In some embodiments, the plug includes two swellable parts joined by a connector, and the placement of the plug according to invention includes positioning the plug so that one swellable part is within a volume bounded by one surface of the membranous tissue and the other swellable part is within a volume bounded by the opposite surface of the membranous tissue, and the connector traverses the rent.
The method can be particularly useful for forming a barrier in a rent in the dura mater. The method can be employed for management of an intraspinal dural rent, or of an intracranial dural rent; including management of a rent at any point in the spinal dura (cervical, thoracic, lumbar, sacral), at any point along the spine from C1 to the sacrum, and including management of a puncture made at the foramen magnum for a CSF tap. For closing a rent (such as a puncture) in the spinal dura, for example, the plug is positioned in the rent so that one swellable part is within the subarachnoid space, and the other swellable part is positioned in the epidural space, and the connector traverses the puncture in the dura. Over a brief time (in the order of seconds to minutes) the parts swell in situ, so that the swollen parts fill the opening in the dura and engage the margin at the edge of the opening, forming the fixed barrier at the site. Thereafter, over a longer time (in the order of days to weeks or months), the barrier is degraded as the rent heals, so that eventually the opening is closed and nothing remains of the barrier.
In some embodiments, the placement of the plug according to the method includes passing the plug through the lumen of a needle or catheter. For treating a puncture in the spinal dura, for example, the plug is placed by pushing it through the dural puncture needle.
The invention can be employed prophylactically at the conclusion of the dural puncture procedure, to occlude the dural defect and thereby inhibit the movement of CSF out from the intrathecal space and the movement of potentially complicating substances into the CSF through the rent. Deployment of the plug through the dural puncture needle provides a dural rent management protocol that is highly reliable and reproducible. Because the size of the dural defect is related to the diameter of the dural puncture needle, sizing the plug according to the lumenal diameter of the needle can index and appropriate size for the barrier that results from swelling of the plug in situ following withdrawal needle over the plug. The rent management protocol according to the invention does not require an additional skill set for the operator beyond confidence in performing the dural puncture itself, and requires only minimal elongation of the dural access procedure.
The plug materials according to the invention are selected for use in regions of the body for which their capacities for biocompatibility and biodegradability are well known or readily ascertainable.
Plugs in a variety of lengths and diameters can be included in a spinal access tray or kit currently in use, without significant dedication of the current configurations of the tray or kit. No special apparatus is needed for carrying out the method of the invention and, accordingly, the invention provides for a cost effective and convenient approach to dural defect management that features a high level of reliability and safety and a low potential for complication.
In another general aspect the invention features a biocompatible and biodegradable plug body for insertion into a tissue rent to form a barrier to fluid movement through the rent, having a swellable portion including at least two connected water-swellable parts. In some embodiments the water-swellable parts are end portions of a dumbbell-shaped body formed entirely of a water-swellable material; in some embodiments the water-swellable parts are beads formed on a connecting filament.
In order to form an effective barrier, the swellable portion of the plug swells in situ from a size small enough that it can be deployed within the rent to a size sufficiently large that the swelled portions engage the membrane or wall near the edges of the rent, and thereby secure the barrier at the site. Accordingly, the material of which the swellable parts are formed is selected so that the swellable parts can increase in size in an aqueous medium (such as, for example, in a physiological saline at about normal body temperature, comparable to conditions at the site in the body of the subject being treated) at least 1.2 times in a transverse dimension, and in some embodiments as much as 10 times in a transverse dimension. In some embodiments swellable parts can increase in size in an aqueous medium to at least 1.3 times, in some embodiments at least 2 times; and as much as 5 times, still more usually as much as 3 times. In particular embodiments the swellable parts increase in size in an aqueous medium about 1.2-3 times in a transverse dimension.
In some embodiments the material of which the swellable parts are formed includes a biocompatible and biodegradable water-swellable polymer. The water-swellable polymer may be protein-based, or carbohydrate-based, or mineral-based. In some embodiments the water-swellable polymer is a gelatin, a collagen, a cellulose, an agarose, a hyaluronic acid, a poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), a poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO), or the like. The material of which the swellable parts are formed can be a foamed gel, or a sponge or mesh, or the like.
In some embodiments the connecting filament is formed of a biocompatible and biodegradable non water-swellable material, such as a polyglycolate or a polylactate or a polydioxanone, or the like. Preferably the filament is a monofilament, rather than a multifilament. Conveniently the connecting filament can be formed of an absorbable suture material, that is, a sterile filament prepared from collagen derived from a healthy mammal, or a synthetic polymer, capable of being biodegraded by living mammalian tissue.
In some embodiments the beads have a generally spheroidal or spherical or ovoid shape; in some embodiments the beads are discoid in shape; in other embodiments the beads are elongated in an axial direction. The beads need not be separate from one another, and in some embodiments the swellable material is continuous between adjacent beads.
In some embodiments, where the plug is to be deployed through a needle or catheter, the swellable parts are sized small enough in a dimension transverse to the filament axis so that they can be passed readily within the lumen of the particular needle or catheter.
In some embodiments the swellable portion of the plug has a length at least 6 millimeters, and more usually at least 10 millimeters; and in some embodiments the swellable portion of the plug has a length at most 20 millimeters, and more usually at most 12 millimeters; in particular embodiment, for use for example in management of an intraspinal dural rent, the swellable portion of the plug has a length in the range 10 to 12 millimeters.
Where the plug is to be deployed by passing it through the lumen of a needle or catheter, the inside diameter of the deployment tool imposes a limit on the wider transverse dimension (for example, the transverse diameter) of the swellable parts of the plug. The inside diameter of a thin-walled 15 gauge needle, for example, may typically be about 1.5 millimeters, requiring that a plug to be deployed through such a needle have a maximum transverse dimension less than about 1.5 millimeters; and the inside diameter of a thin-walled 27 gauge needle, for example, may typically be about 0.2 millimeters, requiring that a plug to be deployed through such a needle have a maximum transverse dimension less than about 0.2 millimeters.
In some embodiments the swellable parts are pitched closely enough together to enable any adjacent two of them to engage the margin at the edge of the rent as they swell. And in some embodiments they are pitched at a distance apart at least equal to about the thickness of the membrane or wall that they are intended to traverse, to ensure that an adjacent pair of the swellable parts can span the thickness at the rent.
In some embodiments the connecting filament is sufficiently stiff that it can serve as a stylet, and in such embodiments the filament may extend well beyond the water swellable beaded portion. The stiffness of the filament will be characteristic of the material and the thickness of the filament.
The invention can be employed in conjunction with any of a variety of medical procedures during which an internal body space is accessed by puncture or rent through a wall or membrane.
The invention can also be employed in conjunction with any of a variety of medical procedures in which a puncture or rent is formed unintentionally. For example, the spinal dura may be unintentionally punctured by the epidural needle in the course of preparing to administer an anesthetic into the epidural space; according to the invention, loss of CSF from the intrathecal space and movement of anesthetic into the intrathecal space can be limited by forming a barrier in such a dural rent prior to completion of the procedure.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The invention will now be described in further detail by reference to the drawings, which illustrate alternative embodiments of the invention. The drawings are diagrammatic, showing features of the invention and their relation to other features and structures, and are not made to scale. For improved clarity of presentation, in the Figs. illustrating embodiments of the invention, corresponding elements shown in the various drawings are not all particularly renumbered, although they are all readily identifiable in all the Figs. Certain anatomical and histological features, not necessary to an understanding of the invention, are omitted from the Figs.
Turning now to
Access to the subarachnoid space 15 can be obtained by passing a needle or catheter (not shown in
According to the invention, a biocompatible and biodegradable plug 19 is placed at the site of the rent. At least part of the plug 19 is swellable in tissue fluids, and, after a short time generally in a scale of seconds or minutes, the plug swells in situ to form a barrier 20 that occludes the rent, as shown in
Some exemplary embodiments of plugs and of barriers formed in situ by swelling of the plugs according to the invention are shown in
In the embodiment of
Suitable swellable materials include biocompatible and biodegradable water-swellable polymers, including for example hydrogels. The swellable material may be of biological origin, either derived from biological tissues or made biosynthetically; or it may be of nonbiological origin. Suitable materials include gelatins, collagens, celluloses, agaroses, hyaluronic acid (HA), poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), polyethylene oxide (PEO), and the like. Where the material is of biological origin it must be substantially free of active infectious agents, including particularly viruses and prions. The swellable material can be a foamed gel, or a sponge, or a nonwoven mesh or felt, or the like. As one example, a foamed gelatin material distributed by Pharmacea and Upjohn under the name “GELFOAM®” may be particularly useful as a swellable material according to the invention.
The swellable material may include combinations of constituents that slow or accelerate the swell rate, or increase or decrease the swell capacity to suit a particular use. And the swellable material may include combination of constituents that make the initially wetted surface of the material more slippery, so that it can be more easily passed through the lumen of a needle or catheter.
The connecting part of the plug may be made of a material different from that of the wider parts, and particularly, the connecting part may be made of a non water swellable material. In the embodiment of
Conveniently, a plug as shown in
As will be appreciated, the strength and stiffness of such a filament will depend upon mechanical properties of the filament material and upon the thickness (diameter; gauge) of the filament. In an embodiment as in
However, the placement of the plug at the site of the rent may be facilitated by providing a stiffer filament. In some embodiments of the invention, as shown by way of example in
However, in order for a barrier to form successfully according to the invention, occluding the rent as shown in
In some instances, the rent site is hidden from view, and access to the rent site is by way of the lumen of a needle or a catheter, or by way of a path formed by a probe or blade. In such circumstances direct inspection of the site cannot be employed to ensure that the plug is advanced to an appropriate position within the rent. For example, no method is currently available for visualizing the rent site in a spinal dural puncture. Where the distance of the rent site from the insertion point at the surface of the subject's skin is known with sufficient accuracy, appropriate placement may be made for example by employing an insertion stylet having length indicia or, for an embodiment such as in
Alternatively, in some procedures where the rent is formed by a needle or catheter or the like, it may be possible to visualize the rent site more directly. For example, in preparation for a cranial dural puncture, a portion of the skull is removed near the site, so that the dura is exposed to view. In such instances a direct visual check on the placement of the plug may be made.
As may be appreciated, where the plug has two connected swellable portions, increasing the distance between the wider parts can increase the likelihood that the plug will be appropriately placed with the connecting portion traversing the rent. The degree to which the wider parts can swell is limited, however, by the properties of the swellable material and, accordingly, the extent to which the wider parts may be separated is also limited: if they are too far apart, then the swollen parts cannot securely engage the membrane surfaces at the margin of the rent, and no barrier will be formed.
Alternatively, according to the invention, in some embodiments the plug has more than two wider swellable parts arranged in a string. This configuration increases the overall length of the swellable portion of the plug without increasing the spacing between pairs of wider swellable parts, and it improves the likelihood that when the plug is placed at the rent site, a connected pair of wider swellable parts will be appropriately placed. For instance, where three wider swellable parts are provided, the overall length of the swellable portion is double the length of a single pair of similarly spaced swellable parts; and either of two connecting pairs of swellable parts can find an appropriate location. Reference is made to
Placement of a plug 160 according to one embodiment of the invention is illustrated in
With the needle 120 deployed, as described with reference to
Then the needle is withdrawn as indicted by the arrow 150 in
The plug is represented in the foregoing Figs. as having spheroidal or spherical swellable parts or beads.
Where the plug is to be deployed by passing a within the lumen of the needle or catheter, the transverse width W is determined by the lumenal dimension, that is, by the inside diameter of the needle or catheter. Generally, the greatest transverse width W must be somewhat smaller than the inside diameter, so that the plug may be passed through the lumen of the needle or catheter with little or no frictional resistance. The dimensions of the defect in the membrane depend particularly upon the outside diameter of the needle that was used to create the puncture, as well as the configuration of the tip of the needle and technique employed. In order to form a secure barrier, the deployed plug will have to be capable of swelling to engage the membrane at the rent, as described with reference to for example to
The pitch P is determined by consideration of the size of the swellable parts or beads and of the dimensional swell capacity of the material of which they are made. That is, referring again to
The series of swellable parts or beads constitute the swellable portion 191 of the plug 190. The length L of the swellable portion 191 of the plug 190 is determined by the number of swellable parts or beads and by the spacing between them. As explained above with reference to FIGS. 12 to 18, the length L is selected to assure that, within a reasonable certainty, the connecting part between an adjacent pair of swellable parts or beads will traverse the rent following deployment of the plug at the site. That is, given a preferred pitch P, the swellable portion of the plug will include a sufficient number of swellable parts or beads to provide a length L that will span the greatest likely margin of error in positioning the plug at the site.
As noted earlier, the swellable parts of the plug according to the invention may have any of a wide variety of shapes. What is required is that at least two connected wider swellable parts have a narrower region between them, so that the plug can be placed at the rent site such that the wider parts are situated on opposite sides of the membrane or wall, with the narrower region traversing the rent.
By way of example,
Rather than being rounded in side view at its widest point, as shown for example in
As illustrated for example in
In the examples shown in
Still other shapes are contemplated according to the invention. As will be appreciated, the wider swellable portions need not be as regularly shaped as illustrated here, nor need they be precisely formed.
Generally, the invention can be useful in surgical procedures in the fields of endoscopy, laparoscopy, orthoscopy, bronchoscopy, and others. For example, the aorta may be accessed from within the stomach by way of a puncture through the stomach wall, using an esophageal endoscope; according to the invention, a barrier can be formed in the rent in the stomach wall at the completion of the procedure. Similarly, in circumstances in which a transurethral catheter cannot be placed, a superpubic puncture of the urinary bladder may be made; a barrier can be formed according to the invention to prevent leakage of urine into the peritoneal cavity through the rent in the bladder wall.
The invention can also be employed in conjunction with any of a variety of medical procedures in which a puncture or rent is formed unintentionally. For example, an unintentional puncture may occur in the course of any of various minimally invasive procedures involving access by way of the lumen of a hollow organ of the body, as for example in various procedures in urology or gastroenterology; such complications are regrettably high, but can be mitigated by using a barrier formed according to the invention to control movement of fluids or fluid-borne materials through the puncture.
Other embodiments are within the following claims.
Claims
1. A method for limiting fluid movement through a rent in a membranous tissue in a body, comprising placing within the rent a plug that includes connected water-swellable parts.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein placing the plug within the rent comprises passing the plug to the rent within a lumen of a catheter extending from an introduction site through intervening tissue to the site of the rent, and wherein the membrane comprises a dura mater and the rent is a dural defect.
3. A method for limiting fluid movement through a rent in the dura mater, comprising providing a plug comprising swellable parts joined by a connector, and placing the plug within the rent such that at least one of the swellable parts is within a subarachnoid space and at least one other one of the swellable parts is positioned in an epidural space, and the connector traverses the rent in the dura mater, wherein placing the plug within the rent comprises passing the plug to the rent within a lumen of a catheter extending from an introduction site through intervening tissue to the site of the rent.
4. The method of claim 3 wherein the rent is an intracranial dural defect.
5. The method of claim 2 wherein the membrane comprises a dura mater and the rent is a dural defect.
6. The method of claim 5 wherein the rent is an intraspinal dural defect.
7. The method of claim 5 wherein the rent is an intracranial dural defect.
8. A biocompatible and physiologically degradable plug body for insertion into a tissue rent for forming a barrier to fluid movement through the rent, comprising a swellable portion including at least two connected water-swellable parts.
9. The plug body of claim 8 wherein the water-swellable parts are end portions of a dumbbell-shaped body formed entirely of a water-swellable material.
10. The plug body of claim 8 wherein the water-swellable parts are beads formed on a connecting filament.
11. The plug body of claim 8 wherein the swellable parts are formed of a material selected so that the swellable parts can increase in size by at least 1.2 times in a transverse dimension.
12. The plug body of claim 8 wherein the swellable parts are formed of a material selected so that the swellable parts can increase in size by at least 1.5 times in a transverse dimension.
13. The plug body of claim 8 wherein the swellable parts are formed of a material selected so that the swellable parts can increase in size by at least 2 times in a transverse dimension.
14. The plug body of claim 8 wherein the swellable parts are formed of a material selected so that the swellable parts can increase in size by 1.2 to 3 times in a transverse dimension.
15. The plug body of claim 8 wherein the swellable parts are formed of a material comprising a biocompatible and biodegradable water-swellable polymer.
16. The plug body of claim 8 wherein the swellable parts are formed of a material comprising a water-swellable polymer of biological origin.
17. The plug body of claim 15 wherein the water-swellable polymer comprises a gelatin, a collagen, a cellulose, an agarose, a hyaluronate, or a combination thereof.
18. The plug body of claim 15 wherein the water-swellable polymer is derived from biological tissue.
19. The plug body of claim 15 wherein the water-swellable polymer is made by a biosynthesis process.
20. The plug body of claim 15 wherein the swellable parts are formed of a material comprising a water-swellable polymer of nonbiological origin.
21. The plug body of claim 20 wherein the water-swellable polymer comprises a poly(vinyl alcohol), a polyethylene oxide, or a combination thereof.
22. The plug body of claim 8 wherein the swellable parts are formed of a material comprising a foamed gel, or a sponge or mesh.
23. The plug body of claim 8 wherein the swellable parts are formed of a material comprising a hydrogel.
24. The plug body of claim 10 wherein the connecting filament is formed of a biocompatible and biodegradable non water-swellable material.
25. The plug body of claim 24 wherein the connecting filament is formed of a material comprising a biocompatible and biodegradable non water-swellable polymer.
26. The plug body of claim 25 wherein the non water-swellable polymer comprises a polyglycolate or a polylactate or a polydioxanone, or a combination thereof.
27. The plug body of claim 10 wherein the filament is a monofilament.
28. The plug body of claim 10 wherein the filament is a sterile filament prepared from collagen derived from a healthy mammal, capable of being biodegraded by living mammalian tissue.
29. The plug body of claim 10 wherein the filament is a sterile synthetic polymer filament, capable of being biodegraded by living mammalian tissue.
30. The plug body of claim 10 wherein the filament comprises an absorbable suture material.
31. The plug body of claim 10 wherein the water swellable parts have a generally spheroidal shape.
32. The plug body of claim 10 wherein the water swellable parts are elongated in an axial direction.
33. The plug body of claim 10 wherein the water swellable parts have a polygonal shape.
34. The plug body of claim 10 wherein the water swellable parts have a discoid shape.
35. The plug body of claim 10 wherein the water swellable parts have an ovoid shape.
36. The plug body of claim 8 wherein the swellable parts are small enough in a dimension transverse to a lengthwise axis of the plug body so that the plug body can be passed readily within the lumen of a selected needle or catheter.
37. The plug body of claim 8 wherein a maximum transverse dimension of the swellable parts is less than 1.5 millimeters.
38. The plug body of claim 8 wherein a maximum transverse dimension of the swellable parts is less than 0.2 millimeters.
39. The plug body of claim 8 wherein the swellable portion has a length at least 6 millimeters.
40. The plug body of claim 39 wherein the swellable portion has a length at least 10 millimeters.
41. The plug body of claim 8 wherein the swellable portion has a length at most 20 millimeters.
42. The plug body of claim 41 wherein the swellable portion has a length at most 12 millimeters.
43. The plug body of claim 8 wherein the swellable portion has a length in the range 10 to 12 millimeters.
44. The plug body of claim 10 wherein the connecting filament is sufficiently stiff that it can serve as a stylet.
45. The plug body of claim 10 wherein the connecting filament extends axially for a length beyond the swellable portion.
46. The method of claim 1 wherein the rent is a defect in a wall of the gastrointestinal tract.
47. The method of claim 1 wherein the rent is a defect in a wall of the urinary bladder.
Type: Application
Filed: Aug 1, 2005
Publication Date: Dec 1, 2005
Applicant: (Fair Oaks Ranch, TX)
Inventors: Aaron Sandoval (Tracy, CA), Robert Presley (Colorado Springs, CO)
Application Number: 11/194,427