JPH0757224B2 - Method for manufacturing surgical eyeless suture needle and eyeless suture needle - Google Patents

Description

Description: TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing an eyeless suture needle used for surgery and an eyeless suture needle manufactured by the method.

<Prior Art> Conventionally, as an operation suture needle, an eye needle having a hole formed in a direction perpendicular to the needle axis has been developed, and thereafter, the needle main body is used to reduce passage resistance and improve workability. An eyeless suture needle having a thread attachment hole formed at the proximal end of the needle has appeared.

There are two types of eyeless suture needles, a hole type drilled needle and a channel (groove) type channel needle. These eyeless suture needles have a minute diameter hole in a considerably small diameter needle due to the development of laser processing and the like. Techniques for drilling and manufacturing were also developed.

On the other hand, as described in Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 28-3184, there has been developed a technique for constructing an eyeless suture needle by integrally welding a pipe having a notched portion at a base end of a needle body.

<Problems to be Solved by the Invention> However, in the above eyeless suture needle, as described above,
Although it is possible to manufacture fine needles with a certain degree of fine hole diameter by using laser processing, etc., this is only capable of drilling, and only laser processing is possible in terms of hole diameter accuracy, straightness, etc. It is not possible to form a good hole with, and as in Japanese Patent Publication No. 61-58172, which is the applicant's patent application,
It is necessary to correct the hole by another process such as drill cutting, but for example, the needle body with a fine diameter of 0.10 mm used in recent brain surgery etc. has a hole with a fine hole diameter of 0.05 mm. It was extremely difficult to do even if free-cutting steel, which was easy to cut, was used.

Generally, it is difficult to make fine holes with high accuracy in needle materials with a needle diameter of 0.3 mm or less, which raises the manufacturing cost and causes many defective products to be discharged, resulting in poor yield. It was In addition, even if a hole with a relatively large diameter, for example, a hole of 0.15 to 0.47 mm is to be drilled, if a hole with a large ratio to the diameter of the needle material is to be drilled, that is, if a hole with a thin wall thickness is to be drilled It is difficult to form a hole having a diameter of 0.15 mm in a needle material having a diameter of 0.22 mm, for example, by the conventional drilling method.

On the other hand, as mentioned above, there was also a technique of constructing an eyeless suture needle by welding a pipe to the base end of the needle body, but this is carried out by general butt welding (resistance welding) or various other welding means. In this case, large burrs are formed on the outer peripheral surface and the inner peripheral surface of the welded portion of the needle body and the pipe, and in particular, the burr rises like a protrusion on the inner peripheral surface, which cannot be used as it is. There is a problem that secondary processing for removing burrs is difficult. Further, since the end surfaces of the needle body and the pipe to be joined have different cross-sectional areas, the heating during welding becomes unbalanced, that is, the pipe is heated first, so that the entire circumference of both ends is There have been problems such as difficulty in welding uniformly and completely, and it has hardly been put to practical use.

The method according to the present invention and the eyeless suture needle obtained by carrying out this method relate to a completely new technique developed in view of these drawbacks of the related art.

<Means for Solving Problems> In the present invention, the base end face of the needle main body and the one end face of the pipe are butted against each other, and a laser beam or an electron beam is relatively applied to the butted portion with respect to the axis of the needle main body. The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing an eyeless suture needle for surgery, which is characterized by irradiating and welding while rotating the eyepiece, and an eyeless suture needle manufactured by the method.

<Operation> In the present invention, one end surface of the pipe is integrally welded to the base end of the needle main body with a laser beam or an electron beam to manufacture an eyeless suture needle, so that the conventional drilling process is completely unnecessary. Therefore, it is possible to prevent the difficulty of workability and the generation of defective products due to the drilling process. Further, as a result, an eyeless suture needle having a fine hole diameter in a needle body having a fine diameter and a thin eyeless suture needle having a hole having a diameter larger than the needle diameter can be mass-produced reliably and inexpensively.

Further, in the method according to the present invention, the welding portion between the needle body and the pipe is welded while being locally melted while converging and irradiating a minute spot with a laser beam or an electron beam from the outer peripheral surface of the welding portion. There is no risk of burrs on the outer and inner peripheral surfaces of.

Further, when welding with a laser beam or an electron beam, the welded part is rotated or the laser beam or electron beam is rotated around the welded part so that the entire welded part is completely welded at a uniform temperature. Therefore, extremely thin pipe welding is also possible.

<Example> An example of the manufacturing method according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

In the drawings, FIG. 1 is a side view showing a main part in a state where the present method is carried out, FIG. 2 is a plan view showing a concrete example thereof, and FIGS. 3 (A) and 3 (B) are welding depths. Alternatively, FIG. 4 is an explanatory view showing the focus of laser light, FIG. 4 is an explanatory view when a plurality of laser lights are used, and FIGS. 5 to 8 are explanatory views showing other embodiments.

In carrying out the present invention, as shown in FIGS. 1 to 4, in addition to the needle body 1, a pipe 2 having the same outer diameter as the outer diameter of the needle body 1 is prepared separately. One end face of the pipe 2 is closely or adjacent to the base end face of No. 1 as shown in the figure. The pipe 2 is formed by winding the same stainless steel strip as the needle body 1 in a ring pipe shape, welding these joints, and dicing this to make it a predetermined diameter, and further cutting it to a predetermined size. It is a thing. These needle bodies 1
The pipe 2 and the pipe 2 are respectively held by chuck shafts 3a and 3b which are disposed so as to face each other on the left and right sides. On the other hand, these chuck shafts 3a, 3b are configured to rotate in the same direction in synchronization via the drive shaft 4 and the timing belt 5.
A laser beam 6 is applied to the welded portion a between the needle body 1 and the pipe 2 through the semi-reflective mirror 7 or the total-reflective mirrors 8a, 8b, 8c, respectively.

In irradiating the laser light 6, a small power is continuously output, and in particular, as shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B, the energy corresponding to the wall thickness b of the pipe 2 is radiated. The focal position c of the laser light 6 is set so that the thickness b of 2 corresponds to the melting depth of the laser light 6.

Therefore, in carrying out the present invention, the needle body 1 and the pipe 2 are synchronously rotated by the chuck shafts 3a and 3b, and the welded portions a are irradiated with a laser beam 6 of low power from the outer peripheral side thereof. The eyeless suture needle can be manufactured by integrally joining the needle body 1 and the pipe 2 in a straight line.

In the above embodiment, the needle body 1 and the pipe 2 are rotated in synchronization with each other, but the laser beam 6 may be rotated instead. Further, the number of laser beams 6 can be increased or decreased as necessary.

When the single laser beam 6 is used, there is a possibility that the needle body 1 and the pipe 2 may be pulled and bent in the direction of the first welding. In this case, as shown in FIG. By temporarily fixing several points of a on the point d with the weak laser beam 6 and then welding, correct welding without bending can be realized. When welding with laser light 6, as shown in FIG.
By injecting an inert gas 10 such as nitrogen to the welded portion a and welding in an atmosphere of the inert gas, it is possible to prevent the welded portion a from being oxidized, and thereby to enable a clean surface welding.

It is still more effective if this is done in vacuum rather than in an inert gas. Especially when welding with an electron beam, it is desirable to be in a vacuum.

Further, the pipe 2 to be welded to the needle body 1 may be welded with a long length and then cut into a fixed length, or may be welded with a precut into a predetermined length. The pipe 2 may be preliminarily subjected to chamfering processing, tap cutting, or uneven processing of the inner peripheral surface of the hole for preventing thread slippage.

It is also possible to weld a pipe having a trumpet shape or a stepped shape by pre-expanding the open end side into which the thread is inserted while keeping the welded portion of the pipe the same diameter as the needle diameter.

Further, in practicing the present invention, the welded portion between the needle body 1 and the pipe 2 is irradiated with a laser beam 6 so that the needle body 1 and the pipe 2 are radiated.
The predetermined width is melted and integrated, but even if the needle body 1 and the pipe 2 are brought into close contact with each other at this time, the surface roughness of the end faces of these has a minute gap, so that the gap is Corresponding weld depressions occur. On the other hand, the welded part is a surface completely melted and resolidified locally, so that it is almost a perfect mirror surface, and this melting is locally performed continuously in the circumferential direction. Since it is a flat surface, it is not flat at all, and there is a gentle undulation of 0.1 to several microns, and the convex part of this undulation is at the same level as the needle length surface other than the welded part. As shown in FIG. 8 (A), this welded portion becomes a weld mark that can be clearly distinguished from the others in a ring shape only by the melting width due to the mirror surface and the corrugation, and unless mechanical grinding or polishing is applied to this portion thereafter. , A ring-shaped mark f which can be clearly distinguished from others, which is not erased by electrolytic or chemical polishing of about 5 to 10 microns. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 7, the needle body 1 and the pipe 2 are intentionally adjacent to each other with a minute gap e therebetween, and the welded portions are irradiated with the laser beam 6 to melt the welded portions. It is also possible to fill the gap e with metal and to recess the welded portion by the volume thereof to form a concave ring-shaped mark f ′ of about several microns or more on the entire welded portion as shown in FIG. 8 (B). It is possible.

Since the ring-shaped marks f and f'are welding marks, they are generally removed by machining such as grinding with a grindstone or puffing to make them the same as the other surfaces, but according to the method of the present invention, as described above. Since a beautiful weld can be obtained, this surface is used as a mark, so machining can be omitted and the cost is very low.

The welded ring-shaped mark f and the concave ring-shaped mark f'formed in this manner serve as marks when the suture thread is inserted into the pipe 2 and caulked, and since there is no such mark as in the conventional case, it is compressed to the end of the hole. It is extremely convenient and effective as it does not cause cracks when it is sized. Further, since the concave ring-shaped mark f'has an intermediate diameter between the small diameter portion crimped when the suture is inserted and crimped and the large diameter portion of the needle body, the entire outer diameter of these It can be formed into a gentle step, and can be inserted into tissue at the time of suturing extremely smoothly.

Although the needle body 1 and the pipe 2 are made of the same material in the above embodiment, for example, the needle body 1 has a property of work hardening.
It is also possible to use SUS302 stainless steel material, and for the pipe 2, use SUS316 stainless steel material that has good workability and does not work harden when making the pipe, and change both materials. The laser light to be applied may be continuous laser light or pulsed laser light.

Further, in the welding of the welded portion a, it is possible to partially weld them, and it is also possible to weaken the laser energy at the start and end of the welding so as to overlap the two. is there.

Although the above embodiment describes welding by laser light,
The same applies to the case of electron beams. However, the electron beam processing is preferably performed in a vacuum, and an electromagnetic field lens is used instead of the optical glass lens to converge the electron beam.

<Effects of the Invention> Since the manufacturing method according to the present invention and the eyeless suture needle manufactured by this manufacturing method have the above-described configurations and operations,
An eyeless suture needle can be manufactured by simply and reliably adhering one end surface of a pipe to the base end surface of the needle body by laser light or electron beam irradiation processing, and burrs are formed on the outer peripheral surface and the inner peripheral surface of the welded portion. It is possible to perform beautiful welding without causing it, and by using the surface of this beautiful welding mark without removing it, it becomes a mark when inserting the thread into the needle and crimping it, and at the time of surgery. It is also very effective as a mark when gripping with a needle holder, and because irradiation of laser light or electron beam is performed at a constant depth while rotating the welding part relatively, it has extremely uniform performance. A feature that good welding can be carried out, and thereby a small diameter eyeless suture needle having a hole having a desired inner diameter and depth with very few defective products can be mass-produced at low cost. A.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side view showing an essential part of a state where the present method is carried out, FIG. 2 is a plan view showing a concrete example thereof, and FIGS. 3 (A) and 3 (B).
Is an explanatory view showing the depth of welding or the focus of laser light, FIG. 4 is an explanatory view when using a plurality of laser lights, fifth
FIG. 7 to FIG. 7 are explanatory views showing another embodiment, and FIG. 8 is an explanatory view showing a case where a ring-shaped mark is formed. 1 is a needle body, 2 is a pipe, 3a and 3b are chuck shafts, 5 is a belt, 6 is a laser beam, 7,8a, 8b and 8c are mirrors, 10 is an inert gas, a is a welded part, b is a pipe 2 Is a thickness, c is a focal position, e is a gap, and f is a concave ring groove.

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. Welding by welding a base end surface of a needle body and an end surface of a pipe to each other and irradiating the butting portion with a laser beam or an electron beam while rotating them relative to an axis of the needle body. A method for manufacturing a surgical eyeless suture needle, comprising: 2. The first end surface of the needle body and the one end surface of the pipe are abutted with each other through a minute gap, and the abutted portion is welded with a laser beam or an electron beam. A method for manufacturing the eyeless suture needle for surgery according to the description. 3. A surgical eyeless suture needle characterized in that a ring-shaped mark of a welding mark having a predetermined width is provided on the outer peripheral surface of the joint between the base end surface of the needle body and the one end surface of the pipe.