T. Kugo, F. Harada, TERUMO Corporation, Shibuya, Japan; H. Murayama, A. Umeno, T. Kudou, R. Souba, TERUMO Corporation, Fujinomiya, Japan
Ti-Ni alloy is a special alloy with superior shape-memory and super elastic properties. Because of such properties, it has been widely-applied in the medical field as well as in other industrial applications.
Terumo devoted our efforts to develop the guide wire made from Ti-Ni alloy ahead of all others in the world and in 1985 launched “RADIFOCUS Guidewire M” in the market.
The guide wire is a device to be inserted into the vessel to guide the catheters for medical treatment and diagnosis. In an endovascular treatment, success depends on allowing these catheters to reach the target lesion in the vessels running complexly in the body. The guide wire made from this super elastic Ti-Ni alloy can transmit the operator’s manipulation at the proximal side to the distal tip of the guide wire smoothly. This has brought dramatic improvement in the selectivity of vessels. Furthermore, the Ti-Ni alloy guide wire, unlike a stainless steel guide wire, has superior durability and will not get deformed plastically even when exposed to a traverse through a severely bent vessel.
Thanks to these advantages, the Ti-Ni alloy guide wire has been applied to a wide range of endovascular treatments, including not only angiography but also percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA), arterial embolization on a cerebral aneurysm and transcatheter arterial embolization (TAE) on hepatocarcinoma. Now, the guidewire has been used as a global standard as the minimally invasive intravascular treatmenets have been developed.
Summary: Guide wire is a device to be inserted into the vessel to guide the catheters for medical treatment and diagnosis. The guide wire made from the Ti-Ni alloy has superior insertability, selectability and durability in the vessel as compared to that made from a stainless alloy.
