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Cordless Portable Vacuum Keeps Surgical Site Free of Fluid
EVANSTON, Ill. --- Northwestern University students have helped design a handy device to help surgeons keep their surgical sites neat and tidy -- a cordless medical vacuum that runs on batteries and can hold a pint of fluid.
The portable suctioning device offers much greater maneuverability in outpatient settings and under emergency conditions than existing systems that plug into the wall.
"Doctors we talked to said probably the cause of the most cursing in the operating room is from stepping on or tripping over the tube for suction," said Richard Lueptow, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Northwestern's Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. "So we thought it would be worth developing a device similar to a Dustbuster, but for sucking up fluid from a surgical site."
Lueptow first conceived of the idea several years ago. A design was developed last year by a team of his mechanical engineering students for their senior design project.
A prototype device is now headed for the Smithsonian Institution, where it will be displayed by two of its student inventors at the National Collegiate Innovators and Inventors Alliance (NCIIA) Exhibition, March 13 and 14. The exhibition features the most promising prototypes from student inventors at colleges and universities nationwide. Lueptow will also present a symposium for faculty, "Unleashing Creative Potential in the Classroom."
The Cordless Medical Vacuum, or CMV, is a small, hand-held device. It consists of a handle that holds the rechargeable battery, a small vacuum pump and the on/off switch, and a container that screws onto the handle to collect fluid. To that, Lueptow said, one can connect any of a large variety of commercially available suction tips. All parts that come into contact with fluid are disposable. The device is intended for delicate operations, where the surgeon needs close control and there is not a large volume to be collected, he said.
Kate Andrews did most of the technical engineering of the prototype. She will return from a year of studying abroad at Oxford University to attend the exhibition and will graduate from Northwestern this June. She intends to pursue graduate study in mechanical engineering.
Her teammate Jon Birmingham wrote a patent for the device and prepared a business plan last summer.
"You don't just go out and make something, you check existing patents in a research stage," said Birmingham, who graduated from Northwestern last year and is now in law school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Birmingham, who wants to practice intellectual property law, the law of inventions and ideas, said the goal is to "design around" existing patents, and draft a patent that affords the broadest possible protection.
His research turned up one similar patent from 20 years ago.
"I tried to distinguish our design from the existing patent," he said. "We have a much more efficient design, with smaller parts, that is easier to assemble. The older design is the size of a toolbox, while ours is the size of a box of Kleenex."
The NCIIA was established by the Lemelson National Program in Invention, Innovation and Creativity to promote the teaching of entrepreneurship in higher education and to provide a forum for institutions to share curricular, technical and legal information. The NCIIA grant program funds multidisciplinary project teams whose work is likely to result in the licensing of new products or technologies.
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