Ultrasonically-Lubricated Catheters: A Proof of Concept

Over the past few decades, minimally-invasive en- dovascular interventions have proved its benefits over conventional open heart surgeries, leading to shorter recovery times and lower infection rates. In a typical endovascular procedure, the interventionist inserts a catheter in the radial or femoral artery and navigates it through the arteries to the heart, where the intervention is performed. In order to safely reach the heart, the catheters (and guidewires) used during these procedures need to easily follow the curves in the vascular system, while creating as little friction as possible with the blood vessel wall. If these devices exhibit high friction, there is a risk of damage to the mucous membranes or the intima of the blood vessels, which may lead to infectious diseases or thrombus formation [1], [2]. While low friction is beneficial to avoid damage to the membranes and blood vessel wall, it makes holding a specific location in open spaces, such as inside the heart, difficult. This is particularly true when high forces need to be applied, such as when cutting or puncturing tissues. This suggests the need for new advanced catheters whose frictional properties are controllable and can be adjusted depending on the phase of the catheterization proce- dure; for instance, having low friction while navigating through the vasculature and switching to a high friction state while executing the surgical task. In this work, we propose a novel concept of a variable friction catheter, which comprises discrete modules for friction control. We hereby present the proof-of-concept of the friction control modules, which we characterized in simulation and experimentally. Finally, we present the preliminary results of the sliding friction experiments.