Stereo microscope helps in stent manufacture

Vision Engineering's Lynx eyepieceless stereo microscope is aiding a number of global stent manufacturers to make angioplasty heart surgery a safer and less complicated procedure

Vision Engineering's Lynx eyepieceless stereo microscope is aiding a number of global stent manufacturers to provide highly sophisticated products to make angioplasty heart surgery a safer and less complicated procedure.

The innovative and ergonomic inspection system is used to ensure that the exacting precision requirements for these devices are met, limiting the serious medical consequences and liability issues that arise from heart surgery.

Angioplasty heart surgery involves using an inflated balloon to dilate and unblock an artery from the inside - a procedure that first took place in 1977 in San Francisco.

Since then, the technique has evolved dramatically, and stents are sometimes now used to provide a 'mechanical scaffolding' inside the artery to prevent its collapse.

Stents are tubular alloy reinforcements that are cemented to the ballon and connected to a wire for control and positioning.

They are used to maintain the patency of coronary vessels following angioplasty surgery, and greatly improve the chances of success both immediately and on a long-term basis.

Incredibly, following this surgery patients are normally discharged the next day and can resume routine activities a few days later.

Stent manufacture has seen a large number of innovations from a wide range of different international suppliers.

However, when dealing with a device with a typical diameter of just 2mm and a length of just 15mm, precision and quality are the common and all-important factors - especially given the medical nature of their use.

It is because of these factors that manual inspection of every single manufactured device is essential.

The barrel of the stent must be inspected for surface inclusions and the edges inspected for burrs and smoothness while, on assembly, the cement from the balloon must not wick onto the barrel.

Conventional inspection methods have utilised a microscope with ring illumination.

However, the surface glare produced by this method has led to a consequent inability to detect manufacturing faults and reduced throughput due to the ergonomic constraints of sustained eyepiece microscope usage.

Vision Engineering has been able to supply the perfect solution to these problems with its Lynx eyepieceless stereo microscope.

The Lynx's patented, user-friendly viewer assembly permits a much greater degree of body position freedom for the operator and delivers a pin sharp stereo image.

With the operator benefiting from the resultant eye relief and the optimal positioning of user controls for ease-of-use and long-term comfort, accuracy and productivity are both greatly enhanced.

The operator is able to efficiently inspect the surface of stents in the great detail required for this application, clearly detecting faults such as wicking.

As a result of these unique benefits, the Lynx inspection system has been adopted by some of the most innovative stent manufacturers in the world.

These include: Inflow (Germany); Cordis (USA); Boston Scientific (USA); CR Bard (USA); Guidant Technology (Ireland); Nemed Tippi (Turkey); and AVE Metronics (Ireland).

In turn, with these manufacturers' devices becoming evermore precise, patients needing heart surgery are far more likely to make a complete and fast recovery.

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