What is a guide wire assembly?
Medical technology enables surgeons to perform miracles by being able to perform intricate procedures without opening the patient, reducing the risk of infection from exposure to air. Using devices created and patented by the steel industry, especially a useful aid known as a guidewire assembly, they can manipulate life-saving devices throughout the vascular system with pinpoint precision, with much less stress on the human body. Also used in the robotics industry, these little constructions may appear fragile, but they can do just about anything a human mind can do.
What exactly is a guide wire?
In simple terms, this is essentially a long straight spring, usually made up of 316 stainless steel. It has diameters ranging from 25mm to whatever length is needed, and will have one end made from an elastic material, to create a usable and flexible tip. They have been used for years in medicine to place medical devices such as cameras under the skin, to insert catheters, or to place stents in hearts.
Several years ago, experiments were conducted to create a network of these wires to facilitate microscopic surgical procedures, where the ultimate goal was to successfully use lasers, cameras, and other devices internally, without making more than a single incision in the body. These coiled wire networks are collectively known as a set of guide wires and have saved countless lives by helping physicians perform life-saving operations without risking the possibility of infection in their high-risk patients.
Cable assembly construction
Most assemblies will consist of hypodermic tubes and coiled wires. There is an outer jacket of 316 stainless steel coiled wires known as interventional guidewire assemblies, which surround a single length of coiled wire known as access wire. The two sets can be manufactured in any number of lengths and diameters, with specifications using inches for the diameters and centimeters for the lengths. This is specifically done so that the diameter of the wire can effectively correspond to the medical device used with it, such as catheters, eliminating any possibility of measurement error.
The typical length of an access guide wire is typically 45-70cm, and intervention wires will be longer than 150-260cm, sometimes up to 500cm, depending on the application requirements. Both sets can be manufactured as straight, curved or hooked, again depending on the application needed. By definition, the typical setup will consist of a network of interventional wires, coated with PTFE for lubrication purposes, surrounding an access wire, to which ribbon wires are welded for manipulation once it has reached its intended destination. The core access cable carries the device and the intervention cables carry it there.