Patent ID: 8685001

Claim:
A hand-held and hand-operative surgical suction system for removing transected hair debris from a patient, for use with a surgical vacuum system, comprising: a hollow molded plastic handle that has two opposed ends and that defines an open interior volume bounded by an outer wall that has an interior wall surface; a plurality of ribs integrally formed in the outer wall, located and spaced along the interior surface of the wall, and projecting into the interior volume; an inlet opening defined in the outer wall at one end of the handle and fluidly coupled to the handle interior volume; a hollow conduit fluidly coupled to the inlet opening; a tip fluidly coupled to the hollow conduit, the tip defining an opening that is larger in area than the opening of the conduit; an outlet opening defined in the outer wall at the other end of the handle, fluidly coupled to the handle interior volume, and constructed and arranged to be fluidly coupled to a vacuum source; a flow-through particulate filter located in the interior volume of the handle downstream of the inlet opening and proximate the outlet opening and arranged such that air pulled by the vacuum into the tip, through the conduit, through the inlet opening, through the interior volume of the handle and expelled from the handle through the outlet opening passes through the filter; wherein the interior of the handle is constructed and arranged such that air flowing therethrough from the inlet opening to the filter passes through the handle interior volume, where the ribs contribute to turbulent flow in the handle volume; wherein the outer wall of the handle defines one or more small apertures that are constructed and arranged to be covered and uncovered by a portion of the user's hand, to provide user control of air flow through the handle interior volume; and wherein the outer wall of the handle is closed except for the inlet opening, the outlet opening and the small apertures.