Patent ID: 8150499

Claim:
A tissue removal system, comprising: a cutting tool coupleable to a catheter to be percutaneously positioned within a body cavity, the cutting tool rotatable with respect to the catheter and operable to remove an undesired tissue from a desired tissue in the body cavity, the cutting tool responsive to at least one physical characteristic of at least two different types of tissue; a rotary drive subsystem drivingly coupleable to the cutting tool to selectively cause the cutting tool to rotate within the body cavity; a discrimination subsystem communicatively coupled to the cutting tool to receive signals therefrom indicative of a plurality of electrical characteristics of tissue to which the cutting tool is at least proximate, determined at a plurality of frequencies, the discrimination subsystem configured to discriminate between at least the two different types of tissue based on the plurality of electrical characteristics determined at the plurality of frequencies indicated by the signals received from the cutting tool; a computer communicatively coupled to the discrimination subsystem to receive signals therefrom indicative of one or more tissue types and configured to determine a direction of travel for the rotary cutting tool based at least in part on the signals indicative of the one or more tissue types; and a steering mechanism communicatively coupled to the computer and physically coupleable to the catheter, and configured to control a direction of travel of the rotary cutting tool in response to the direction of travel determined by the computer.