Patent ID: 7108692

Claim:
An apparatus for applying light to a site to be treated on a wall of a vessel in the human or animal body, comprising: a light-feeding instrument designed to guide light generated by an extracorporal light source to said site and to radiate said light onto said site; said light-feeding instrument comprising an elongated light guide that can be inserted into said vessel and can be displaced therein in a longitudinal direction of said vessel; and light-deflecting means designed to direct said light fed through said light guide in a substantially radial direction onto said site to be treated; wherein said light-deflecting means are designed as a reflector whose reflecting surface is inclined to a longitudinal direction of said light guide, and wherein said reflecting surface is designed such that said light emerging from said light guide is reflected toward said site to be treated on said wall of said vessel in a fashion distributed uniformly over an entire circumference of said wall without rotation of any one of said light guide and said reflector about its longitudinal; and holding means for fixing said vessel during the application of said light, said holding means having a balloon that extends axially beyond a distal end of said light guide and beyond said light-deflecting means and surrounds said light guide and said light-deflecting means.