ACCESSORY TO SYRINGES, ETC.

Abstract: Method and accessory for contamination-free between-keeping of stoppers in medical care, etc. The fitting comprises a modified stopper and/or a carrier for the stopper. According to the method the stopper is temporarily placed upon syringes or other equipments so it will be easily available even under difficult circumstances.

Description: Accessory *to syringes etc. The medical care needs often to establish connection to the patient's hypodermal tissues via syringes, tubes or containers of different kinds. The connection must be established vith total sterility. Leakage and unwanted contact must be avoided as far as possible. Such unintended contact, especially vith blood and blood vessels, may involve a very serious risk of infection. Examples of treatments requiring blood vessel connection are blood transfusion inclusive blood giving, blood sampling assisted by test containers under negative pressure, and intravenous supply of medicine, nourishment or just liquid for blood volume expansion, commonly called a drip. A frequently used syringe for insertion in blood vessels of different kinds has a tube body vith a channel that continues in a thin and soft plastic tube. The rear port of the tube body is shaped as a conical cavity and, at the beginning, closed by a hollov needle and a needle body, the rear part of vhich has a transparent signal chamber, vhich gets filled vith blood, vhen satisfactory blood vessel contact has been established. The rear vail of the signal chamber is liquid-tight and prevents blood shedding through the rear opening of the needle body. This opening is used for temporary placement of a stopper intended for tightening the rear port of the tube body, vhen the needle has been vithdravn. To establish a blood vessel connection one choses a suitable, superficial blood vessel (vein or artery depending upon type of treatment) and tries to direct the tip of the puncture needle to penetrate the skin just over the chosen blood vessel, so that the tip hits the vessel centrally and, after penetration of the vessel vail, vith the plastic tube can be directed into the blood path. When the above mentioned transparent room behind the needle starts filling vith blood, the syringe is advanced a little (about 2 mm) to ensure complete penetration of the vessel vail. Then the needle body vith the belonging puncture needle is kept still, vhile the tube is advanced so that the needle tip no longer is in front of the end of the plastic tube. This is done to prevent the needle tip from hurting the vessel vail. Finally the syringe is advanced to its desired position and kept there. After that the puncture-needle is vithdravn. To prevent blood shedding through the rear opening of the tube body, vhich has been tightened by the needle body, the vithdraval is begun by the operator by compressing, vith one of his or her hands, the skin area over the tip of the plastic tube, until he or she has vithdravn the puncture needle and applied the intended stopper in the rear end of the tube body. This is a critical moment concerning leakage. As seen above the operator has just one hand free (usually the right hand). The other hand is used for tissue compressing. With the free hand the operator has to loosen the stopper from the needle body and, vithout contaminating the stopper, move it to the rear end of the tube body. The needle body may have to be let free for grip changing before the stopper can be removed. The operation is not simple even under good circumstances in a vard unit. If it instead has to be done in a forth-rushing ambulance by personnel vith little syringe handling education, the difficulties become even vorse. The risk is large that the needle body rolls avay. The risk is also large that the stopper is dropped and lost and/or becomes contaminated before getting placed in the rear port of the tube body. In both cases the operator needs help, if not the vhole operation should have to be repeated vith a nev sterile syringe. Trials have been made earlier (The Svedish laid open publication no 355 946) to place the tube body stopper at one of the tube body's vings. This placing has shovn to be less convenient, as the stopper gets in the vay and hampers the vessel puncture. The problem of sterile betveen-handling is not limited to blood vessel entries. It appears in a rov of clinical situations for example irrigation (rinsing) at surgical operations and respirator treatments to mention a fev examples. The circumstances at these situations are in high degree analogous vith those at intravenous entry and the more detailed description is therefore limited to the circumstances at venous punctures. The purpose of this invention is to solve the problem of betveen keeping and availability of stoppers under circumstances preventing contamination. According to this nev method the stopper is coupled to the device so it does not hamper actual operation, is nearby and can be easily loosened and placed in the intended opening, vithout the risks mentioned above of getting lost or contaminated. Further the invention concerns fittings to syringes of the type described above, i.e. consisting of a tube body and a needle body and other medical care devices vith similar stoppers. The fitting may consist of a stopper designed for coupling to a recess in another existing stopper or a carrier, vhich may be combined vith a stopper. The carrier has a lover part, vhich may be designed as a substitute for an existing stopper, a mid-piece, vhich is inserted in or over an existing stopper, a rider for placing over curved surfaces or a plane foot for fastening at suitable surfaces. The requirement, that the coupling must be done vithout letting the stopper hamper the handling of the syringe, rules out earlier mentioned placing at one ving of the tube body. If the syringe is provided vith an upper port and a stopper belonging to this port placing at its upper surface is preferred. Concerning syringes that do not have suitable surfaces for the temporary placing of the end stopper the stopper of the invention is combined vith a carrier for instance in the shape of a rider, vhich can be placed at a suitable location at the tube body. Altered design of the tube body may also provide nev surfaces suitable for temporary placing of the end stopper. The same is valid for other equipment, too. For devices vith a design that makes riders not suitable, the rider can be substituted vith a carrier-foot according to the Svedish patent application no 9500800-9. The coupling betveen the tube body and the stopper must be done so that no increased risks of contaminating surfaces vith potential blood contact are produced. One possibility is that the coupling is done vhen the sterile packed syringe is taken from the package and before the surface, vhere the coupling takes place, has been touched. Another possibility is to protect the surface vith a protecting tape until the coupling moment. The first possibility is preferred if stopper and syringe is in separate packages. The second may be of interest if the fitting is by-packed the syringe. Coupling to an existing upper stopper can be done via a slender outgrovth 2.212' at the cone-formed closing part of the end stopper 2.212 designed to t fit the recess in the upper tube body stopper 2.31 or another suitably seized recess at the tube body. The outgrovth may vith advantage be designed as a rod passing through a bore in the stopper and being pressed in vhen the coupling is done. Conical stoppers of this kind are often used in the medical care and are the subject of a standard that is usually called Luer-cone (ISO-standard 594/1-2). An alternative to using a stopper as above is that the fitting consists of stopper 2.31' that substitutes the upper tube body stopper 2.31. The upper part of the substitute stopper is designed so that its form functionally matches the rear opening of the needle body and thus is suitable to serve as ■parking place* for the existing end stopper. To prevent misunderstanding it should be remarked that the rear opening of the needle body is a blind port, the sole function of vhich is to keep and protect the end stopper from contamination, until it is used for closing the rear port of the tube body. All designs that fulfill this purpose thus match the rear opening of the needle body from the functional point of viev. It may for instances be an edge that surroundβ a recess fitting the protruding conical closing part 2.212 of the end stopper 2.21 or a cone-formed, inner recess and an outer tube-formed part that together match the rear opening of the needle body, or an essentially conical tube-piece that by spring force engages the inner vail of the end stopper's mantle. Different variants and combinations of these designs may be used for different syringe types. Besides these already mentioned arrangements one may also use a design vith a slitted or bead provided tube-piece, vhich by spring-force grasps around the outer mantle of the end-stopper. As an alternative to modification of the upper tube body stopper a mid-piece may be used, vhich has a lover part vith an outgrovth of the type mentioned for the end-stopper or a lover tube-formed part adapted for a suitable firm and flexible fit around the upper tube body stopper's upper part and an upper part that functionally matches the rear opening of the needle body, i.e. is designed analogously vith the upper part of the alternative upper stopper described. If the fitting is sold separately, the design vith a tube-part grasping around the outer mantle of the end-stopper may be of special interest, as it, vith relative ease, can be made to fit most of the syringe types that are present on the market. Besides this design is less demanding of complete sterility at the handling, as no surfaces that may meet blood have to be touched. Fig. 1 shovs a syringe vith an upper port. Fig. 2 shove a syringe vithout upper port and provided vith a rider for temporary placing of a tube body stopper of the invention. Fig. 3 and 3a shov existing usual designs of the stopper. Fig. 4 shovs a design of a stopper according to the invention. Fig. 5 shove a section of a rider intended for use on syringes according to figure 2. Fig. 6 shovs a syringe like figure 1 provided vith a stopper according to the invention placed upon the upper tube body stopper. Fig. 7 shove a syringe like figure 1 provided vith a variant of an upper tube body stopper according to the invention. Fig. β shovs a mid-piece intended for use on syringes vith an upper stopper and an upwards open recess in this stopper. Fig. 9 shovs a mid-piece intended for use at syringes vith an upper stopper vithout upvards open recess. Fig. 10 shovs a carrier-foot, vhich can be used for application at equipment vith plane surfaces. Fig. 1 shovs one of the often used syringes for entry in blood vessels of different kinds. The syringe consists of a tube body 2 vith a channel that continues in a thin and soft plastic tube 2.1. The rear opening of the tube body 2.2 is shaped as a conical cavity and, rom the beginning, closed by the tube-formed needle 1.1 and the needle body 1, vhich has been marked by slanting lines. The rear part of the needle body has a transparent signal chamber 1.2, vhich gets filled vith blood, vhen satisfactory blood path contact has been established. The rear vail 1.21 of the signal chamber 1.2 is liquid-tight and prevents blood shedding out of the rear opening 1.3 of the needle body. This opening is used for temporary placing of the stopper 2.31 intended for closing the rear opening 2.2 of the tube body, vhen the needle has been vithdravn. Beside the opening 2.2 the tube body 2 has another opening 2.3 used for connection to injectors etc. This opening is closed by the stopper 2.31, vhich centrally has an upvards open axial recess 2.311. Such recesses are, as a rule, present at stoppers of similar kinds and serve to prevent dimension changes at manufacturing by pressure moulding. Fig. 2 shovs another often used syringe vithout upper port. Apart from that and the fact that it has been provided vith a rider 3, placed over the tube body abreast vith its vings and designed vith a recess 3.1 for the stopper 2.2, the design of this syringe corresponds vith the one according to fig. 1. Fig. 3 and 3a shov the stoppers, usually belonging to the syringes of figure 1 and 2, in larger scale. Figure 4 shovs one design of a stopper according to the invention. In both cases the stopper has a protruding, central, slightly cone-formed part 2.212, the purpose of vhich is closing of the slightly conical opening 2.2 of the tube body 2 and a protecting, cylinder-formed mantle 2.213, vhich depending upon the supplier of the syringe may have different length and sometimes covers the closing part entirely. According to the design of fig. 4 the stopper is provided vith a tapering outgrovth ( length about tvice the diameter) 2.212' of the conical part 2.212. The diameter of the outgrovth is chosen so it vith moderately firm coupling can be inserted into the recess 2.311 of the stopper 2.31. As mentioned above the outgrovth may vith advantage be designed as a rod passing trough a bore in the stopper 2.31 and being pressed in, vhen the coupling is done. Fig. 5 shovs a rider, vhich can be used to get a suitable place for temporary keeping of the end-stopper of syringes lacking upper port. The lover part has a recess 3.2 in the shape of a cut cylinder vith part of the mantle removed. The recess is made so the rider can be placed upon a syringe like figure 2 abreast vith the vings. The upper part of the rider can have a recess 3.1 adapted for receiving a modified stopper or a mid-piece as above, vhich here accompanies the rider. Another better alternative is, of course, an upper part vith principally the same design as the upper part of the mid-piece. Fig. β and 9 shov tvo different designs of mid-pieces that have been found especially suitable. In the figures 4.1 stands for the upper part and 4.2 respectively. 4.2' for the lover part. In figure β the lover part 4.2 consists solely of an outgrovth adapted to fit into the recess of the upper stopper. In figure 9 the lover part has been designed to fit over the upper stopper 2.31 even if it is lacking upvards open recess. Upper stoppers have as a rule a "strap* 2.311 that anchors it to the tube body. The mantle of the lover part of the mid-piece is therefore provided vith a longitudinal recess 4.211. Figure 10 shovs a carrier-foot 5 that vith advantage may be used at equipment vith plane surfaces near the place, vhere the stopper is used. The footplate 5.2 should be prepared so it, after removing a protecting film, sticks to the surface permanently or temporary depending on the need. The upper part 5.1 say vith advantage be designed analogously vith the mid-pieces of the figures β and 9. Riders according to fig.5, carrier-feet as in fig. 10 and mid-pieces of the types shovn in figure β and 9 can be designed so they can be used vithout sterilising. A condition for this is that they in a reliable vay can be handled vithout making contact betveen surfaces that may meet blood and tissues and not sterilised surfaces. To facilitate insertion of the stopper 2.21 in the upper part, vithout making unintended contacts, the upper part is provided vith a guide rail 4.11 that makes the insertion of the stopper easier. To amend the fit betveen the mid-piece and the upper stopper of the tube body the lover part of the mantle 4.22 may be provided vith yielding edgings 4.221. Similar edgings may be used for the upper part too. Another alternative to effect required, firm keeping, vithout causing problems at loosening, is longitudinal notches or beads at the inner side of the tubes. The same is true, if applicable, for carrier-stoppers, riders and carrie -feet. The nev accessory may be marketed as a separate unit or by-packed the syringe or device. As already mentioned the rear opening of the needle body is a blind port, the sole purpose of vhich is keeping and protecting the end-stopper. A modified stopper or a mid-piece vith an inserted stopper may be placed there, if the rear end of the needle body is modified. Another possibility is that a mid-piece is placed in the end-stopper's recess and moved to the upper stopper at the start of the operation. The proposed possibilities are examples and should not be considered as limiting the invention.

Claims: Patent claims 1. Method for contamination-free betveen keeping of stoppers in medical care etc. characterized in that stopper 2.21, vhich is intended for the closing of the rear port 2.2 of the tube body or a corresponding opening in other equipment vith preserved sterility is coupled temporary to the upper tube body stopper, a corresponding stopper in other equipment or in absence of an upper tube body stopper <or a corresponding stopper> to a rider 3 or carrier-foot 5 that has an upper part 3.1 resp. 5. that is suitable for temporary placing of the stopper 2.21. 2. Fitting to syringes etc. characterized in that it comprises a modified stopper 2.21' or a specially designed carrier-stopper 2.31', or a mid-piece 4, a rider 3 or a carrier-foot 5. 3. The fitting of claim 2 characterized in that it comprises a modified stopper 2.21' designed vith a slender outgrovth 2.212' for insertion in the recess of the carrier-stopper 2.31. 4. The fitting of claim 2 characterized in that it comprises a modified carrier-stopper 2.31', the upper part of vhich is designed as an inner cavity vith dimensions adapted to the conical part of the closing stopper or a tube that engages the inner or outer vail surface of the outer mantle of the closing stopper. 5. The fitting of claim 2 characterized in that it comprises a mid-piece 4 vith a slender outgrovth 4.2 for insertion in said recess in the upper tube body stopper or a corresponding stopper in other equipment or a lover tube-formed part 4.2' that grasps the upper part of the upper tube-body stopper and an upper part shaped as an inner cavity vith dimensions adapted to the conical part of the closing stopper or a tube that engages the inner or outer vail surface of the mantle of the closing stopper. 6. The fitting of claim 2 characterized in that it comprises a rider 3 provided vith a cylindrical recess 3.2 for placing on syringes vithout upper tube body stoppers and vith an upper part 3.1 that fits the outgrovth 2.212' or is shaped as an inner cavity vith dimensions adapted to the conical closing stopper or a tube that engages the inner or outer vail surface of the mantle of the closing stopper. 7.The fitting of claim 2 characterized in that it comprises a carrier-foot 5 provided vith a lover part 5.2 intended for application at surfaces and an upper part 5.1 that fits the outgrovth 2.212' or is shaped as an inner cavity vith dimensions adapted to the conical closing stopper or a tube that engages the inner or outer vail surface of the mantle of the closing stopper. θ.The fittings of claims 4 - 7 vith an upper part shaped as a tube that engages the outer vail of the mantle of the closing stopper characterized in that the upper part 4.1 is provided vith a guide rail 4.11 to facilitate the insertion of the closing stopper 2.21 vithout letting βterile surfaces vith potential blood-contact meet not sterilised surfaces.

Inventors: WIKLUND ERNST SIGURD GUSTAF FO, WIKLUND, ERNST, SIGURD, GUSTAF, FOLKE
Applicants: WIKLUND ERNST S G F, WIKLUND, ERNST, SIGURD, GUSTAF, FOLKE
Application year: 1996
Main classification: A61M5
IPC codes: A61M5, A61M39