Patent ID: 6702829
Filing Date: 2004-03-09
Classification: A61B,A61F,A61M

Abstract:
A connector for use in making an artificial, fluid-tight connection between an end portion of a tubular graft conduit and a side wall of a tubular body conduit in a patient via an artificially formed aperture in the side wall of the tubular body conduit so that the tubular graft conduit extends from the tubular body conduit outside of the tubular body conduit and the patient's body fluid can flow between lumens of the tubular graft conduit and the tubular body conduit via the connection, the connector comprising:a structure that is annularly continuous but annularly enlargeable and configured for disposition substantially concentric with the tubular graft conduit, the structure including: (a) a plurality of cantilevered, longitudinal, tissue-piercing members disposed in an annular array that is substantially concentric with the annularly continuous structure, a cantilevered length of each of the tissue-piercing members being great enough to allow the tissue-piercing member, in use, to pass all the way through the side wall of the tubular graft conduit and to become partly extraluminal of the tubular graft conduit, the tissue-piercing members having strength sufficient to secure the tubular graft conduit to the connector when thus passed through the side wall of the tubular graft conduit; (b) a plurality of retention fingers disposed in an annular array that is substantially concentric with the annularly continuous structure, the retention fingers being extendable, in use, radially outwardly relative to the artificially formed aperture and inside the tubular body conduit, the retention fingers having length sufficient when thus extended radially outwardly to engage the inside of the side wall of the tubular body conduit at locations annularly around the artificially formed aperture, and the retention fingers having strength sufficient when thus engaged with the inside of the side wall of the tubular body conduit to at least help retain the tubular graft conduit in fluid-tight, artificial connection with the tubular body conduit; and (c) a ring having convolutions that repeatedly traverse a circumference of the structure, wherein the ring is produced from a tube by removing interdigitated portions from the tube, alternating remove portions extending in from opposite ends of the tube.