MEDICAL IMAGING DEVICE SUCH AS A TEE PROBE FOR UV DISINFECTION AND A DESIGN METHOD

Abstract

This medical imaging device (1) such as in particular a TEE probe, able to be disinfected at least at intermediate level DNI/HLD in a UV radiation disinfection system, is characterized in that it comprises at least one part (3) made of a UV-transparent material to reduce the shadow areas on the device.

Claims

1. A medical imaging device such as, in particular, a TEE probe, able to be disinfected at least at intermediate level DNI/HLD in a UV radiation disinfection system, characterized in that it comprises at least one part made of a UV-transparent material to reduce the shadow areas on the device.

2. The medical device such as, in particular, a TEE probe according to the claim 1, characterized in that the said part of the device is made of a material transparent to at least 30% of the UV radiation transmission.

3. The medical device such as, in particular, a TEE probe according to claim 1, characterized in that the said part of the device makes it possible to reduce the shadow zones of the device by at least 15%.

4. The medical device such as, in particular, a TEE probe according to claim 1, characterized in that the said part of the device is made of quartz.

5. The medical device such as, in particular, a TEE probe according to claim 1, characterized in that the said part of the device is made of polyfluoroethylene.

6. The medical device such as, in particular, a TEE probe according to claim 1, characterized in that the said part of the device comprises at least one element for handling this device.

7. The medical device such as, in particular, a TEE probe according to claim 1, characterized in that it is able to achieve DNI/HLD disinfection in less than 10 minutes in a UV chamber system which delivers a cumulative dose of at least 60 mJ/cm2 on at least one of the other surfaces of the device during the disinfection cycle.

8. The medical device such as, in particular, a TEE probe according to claim 1, characterized in that the said part of the device enables the difference in exposure of its different portions to be reduced by several orders of magnitude.

9. A method for designing a medical device such as, in particular, a TEE probe according to claim 1, characterized in that it consists in characterizing the shadow zones of the device, and in designing and validating the design thereof using a computer-assisted optical simulation tool.

Description

[0029] The invention will be better understood upon reading the description that follows, given only as an example and made with reference to the attached drawings, wherein:

[0030] FIG. 1 shows a side view of an example of the realization of a medical imaging device in a UV disinfection system; and

[0031] FIG. 2 shows a detailed view of this device.

[0032] Indeed, a medical imaging device has been illustrated on these figures and in particular on FIG. 1, a medical imaging device which is for example in the form of a TEE probe designated by the general reference 1 on these figures.

[0033] This device is able to be disinfected at a DNI/HLD level in a disinfection system using UV radiation, and in particular UV-C, shown in this figure and designated by the general reference 2.

[0034] As illustrated, this medical imaging device includes, for example, handling elements, designated by the general reference 3, which are likely to form shadow zones on the device, these shadow zones being also called cold spots, which do not receive a sufficient UV dose to reach the DNI/HLD disinfection.

[0035] These shadow zones of the device can for example be characterized by a computer-assisted optical simulation tool or by any other technique.

[0036] This tool can also be used to design and validate the design of such a device to verify that the designed device is able to be disinfected as required and to allow the system to monitor in real time the disinfection cycles, to calculate the dose received by and through the part transparent to the UV.

[0037] These different operations are then part of an overall method for the design and validation of the device.

[0038] In order to solve these problems of shadow zones, the medical imaging device according to the invention includes at least one part made of a UV-transparent material to reduce these shadow zones on the device.

[0039] In the example illustrated in these figures, the part or parts made of UV-transparent material of the device are handling elements of the device, i.e., for example the elements designated by the general reference 3.

[0040] These parts of the device are then made of a material transparent to at least 30% of the UV radiation transmission.

[0041] The material used can be, for example, be quartz or even polyfluoroethylene.

[0042] Of course, other materials and other parts of the device made of this type of material can also be considered.

[0043] The use of this material for at least some parts or parts of the device, which may cause shadows on the device, is intended to ensure that as much of the surface of the medical device as possible is properly exposed in order to achieve the desired DNI/HLD disinfection over the entire surface.

[0044] Thus, the said part of the device made of this UV-transparent material, allows to reduce cold spots or shadow zones by at least 15% compared to an identical configuration that would have been made of a UV-blocking material.

[0045] It allows to reduce in this sense the difference in exposure between the hot and cold spots of the device by several orders of magnitude (less than 5×, less than 4×, less than 3×, less than 2×).

[0046] This then allows the use of a conventional UV disinfection system allowing to obtain a DNI/HLD disinfection in a limited exposure time of a few minutes such as less than 10 minutes for example, in a UV chamber system that delivers a cumulative dose of at least 60 mJ/cm2 on at least one of the other surfaces of the device during the disinfection cycle.

[0047] Thus, it is conceivable that, in the device according to the invention, the cold spot will receive at least one fifth of the dose received by the hot spot during disinfection by a conventional device, the cold spot being at least twice as hot as it would have been if a material other than a UV-transparent material had been used to make the related part(s) of the device.

[0048] This can then be validated as described above by using the optical simulation tool mentioned above.

[0049] Of course, other embodiments can be considered.