Arthroscopic sheath design and technical evaluation

The maintenance of a clear view on the operation area is essential to perform a minimally invasive procedure In arthroscopy, this is achieved by irrigating the Joint with a saline fluid that is pumped through the joint At present the arthroscopic sheaths are not designed for optimal irrigation, which causes. suboptimal arthroscopic view The goal of this study is to prevent new design concepts and their technical evaluation to optimize irrigation We focused on decreasing the fluid restriction and stimulating turbulent inflow streams This is achieved by combining analysis of clinical practice fluid mechanics theory, and experiments A distinction is made between a three and a two-portal itch fugue For a three-portal technique the design concept consisted of a conventional sheath (04 5 mm) used with a smaller diameter arthro scope (circle divide 2 7 nun) This resulted in a decreased fluid restriction For the two portal technique a partition is designed which separates the inflow and outflow streams. in this sheath Practical embodiments of the concepts are evaluated experimentally in comparison with conventional sheaths The setup consisted of a simulated arthroscopic operative vetting of a knee joint The main discriminating measures are the irrigation time the fluid restriction the flow and the pressure in the putt The results show that the proposed concept for the three portal technique decreased the irrigation time significantly by 25% and the concept with the partition for the two portal technique decreased the irrigation tune by 67% (analysis of variance, p <005) Different sheath tips showed no significant differences leaving the straight shaft as the preferred embodiment The simulation environment proved to be a suitable platform to test devices in a conditioned vetting The new sheath is expected to be a valuable improvement in achieving optimal irrigation [DOI 10 1115/1 3148835]