Applications to the Microcatheter

Catheter based diagnosis and therapy have become increasingly popular. Conventional catheters cannot move actively and the operations require certain human skill. If the direction of the tip of microcatheter and guide wires can be controlled outside the body, it would be very useful to use eatheter based diagnosis and therapy. Sueh eatheters are called active catheters . In order to develop active catheters, several miero-aetuators were applied to the active mieroeatheter system. The IPMC actuator is soft and driven by low voltage. And it is easy to miniaturize. Henee, the IPMC actuator was applied to the aetive microcatheter for aneurysm surgery in the brain. 

The speeifieations of blood vessel simulator are 4 mm, 5 mm and 8 mm in internal diameter, turning angle of 45-95 and sectional diameter of 2-8 mm in aneurysms. The catheters used for experiments are 6Fr, 4Fr, 3Fr in outer diameter. When the temperature of 

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