Patent ID: 8007440

Claim:
An apparatus for advancing an intravascular device through a severe obstruction in a blood vessel comprising: a catheter having proximal and distal ends and a tip at the distal end; an ultrasound transducer mounted to the tip and configured to transmit ultrasound pulses and receive echoes; a radiofrequency ablation electrode mounted to the tip; the catheter having sufficient torsional stiffness and longitudinal flexibility to enable it to be manually advanced through, and its distal end controllably rotated within, the blood vessel by manual rotation of the proximal portion of the catheter; an angle encoder connected to the catheter and configured to detect changes in the angular position of the catheter; circuitry and software operatively associated with the angle encoder and the transducer and configured to generate and transmit an electrical signal to the transducer to activate the transducer only in response to detection of changes in the angular position of the catheter; circuitry and software configured to receive echo signals and to process the echo signals to create and display an image of the vessel; the catheter structurally arranged to be rotatable and movable solely under manual control and structurally arranged to be rotatable selectively and reversibly in clockwise or counterclockwise directions; manually actuable circuitry for generating and transmitting radiofrequency energy to the ablation electrode; wherein the apparatus is structurally arranged such that the distal tip of the catheter is positionable, rotatable, and actuatable to ablate the obstruction entirely under manual control.