A New Automatically Fixating Stone Basket (2.5 F) Prototype with a Nitinol Spring for Accurate Ureteroscopic Stone...

Area of Science:

• Urology
• Biomedical Engineering
• Medical Devices

Background:

• Accurate intraoperative stone size assessment is vital for successful endourological stone retrieval.
• Previous prototypes had material mismatches affecting performance.
• Improvements are needed to enhance the safety and efficacy of stone extraction tools.

Purpose of the Study:

• To enhance an automatically fixating measuring stone basket prototype.
• To improve intraoperative stone size measurement accuracy.
• To address material incompatibilities in the original design.

Main Methods:

• A nitinol spring replaced the original steel spring in the basket.
• A modified nonlinear millimeter scale was integrated onto the basket handle.
• The basket utilized a nitinol construction with a spring-supported self-closing mechanism.

Main Results:

• The material mismatch between the basket and spring was resolved.
• A nonlinear scale was implemented, ranging from 2 mm (green) to 8 mm (red).
• The new design eliminated material differences, improving the device's integrity.

Conclusions:

• The enhanced automatically fixating stone basket with a nitinol spring shows promise for improving endourological stone retrieval.
• The modified scale offers a potential for more accurate intraoperative measurements.
• Further validation studies are recommended for the new scale and basket design.