MEDICAL APPARATUS FOR EXTRACORPOREAL BLOOD TREATMENT

• US 20100087770A1
• Filed: 07/31/2007
• Published: 04/08/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/23/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: B. Braun Medizintechnologie GmbH (B. Braun Holding GmbH & Co. KG)
• Original Assignee: B. Braun Avitum AG (B. Braun Holding GmbH & Co. KG)
• Inventors: Bock, Gerhard, Hasberg, Carsten, Moll, Stefan
• Granted Patent: US 8,529,485 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 604/4.10
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 1/3653 Interfaces between patient blood circulation and extra-corporal blood circuit
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 1/3656 Monitoring patency or flow at connection sites; Detecting disconnections
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 1/3659 Cannulae pertaining to extracorporeal circulation

Abstract

The medical apparatus has lines that are connected to the vascular system of a patient. To ensure that an accidental escape of blood is identified, a camera is provided and is directed at the extracorporeal blood circuit of the patient. The image signals from the camera are processed in the sense that the color of blood and/or its arrangement in the image area in the camera image is determined, wherein the size of the recorded image area with the color of blood is also evaluated. In this way, an extracorporeal blood loss can be detected and signaled automatically.

Claims

1. A medical apparatus for extracorporeal blood treatment, comprising a treatment device connectable to the blood circuit of a patient via extracorporeal lines, at least one blood pump, a control unit for controlling said blood pump and for monitoring operational states, and a camera arranged to be directed towards a treatment station, characterized in that said camera is a color camera connected to a detection device for detecting the color of blood and the size of the image area occupied by the blood.

2. The medical apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that said camera is a digital camera and that means are provided for detecting the number of pixels exposed by the color of blood.

3. The medical apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that a transformation device is provided for transforming the signals of said camera emitted in the RGB color space into another color space.

4. The medical apparatus according to claim 3, characterized in that said other color space is the YUV color space.

5. The medical apparatus according to claim 1, characterized by a storage unit for storage of criteria for blood detection.

6. The medical apparatus according to claim 5, characterized in that said storage unit has different criteria stored therein for different illumination spectra.

7. The medical apparatus according to claim 5, characterized by an illumination sensor for detecting the illumination spectrum and by means for selecting said stored criteria in dependence on the detected illumination spectrum.

8. The medical apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that an illumination device is provided for illuminating the area captured by the camera with light having a predetermined illumination spectrum.

9. The medical apparatus according to claim 1, characterized by a device for computing the speed of the enlargement of the blood-colored surface area.

10. The medical apparatus according to claim 9, characterized in that the image sequence of the camera is controlled in correspondence to the speed of the enlargement of the blood-colored surface area.

11. The medical apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that, for detecting the blood loss, a device is provided for summation of the blood-colored image pixels over a plurality of images of the camera.

12. The medical apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that said control unit is operative to activate shut-off means in the extracorporeal blood circuit if a limiting value of the blood-colored surface area or a limiting value of the speed of the enlargement of this surface area has been exceeded.

13. The medical apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that the extracorporeal line system includes a blood detector allowing for activation of the camera upon detection of blood.

14. The medical apparatus according to of claim 1, characterized in that the camera is provided with a drive unit for self-adjustment and is operative to adjust itself towards a reference marking.

15. The medical apparatus according to claim 14, characterized in that an alarm is generated in case that the camera does not find said reference marking.

16. A method for monitoring the operation of a medical apparatus for extracorporeal blood treatment wherein a camera captures an image of a patient present at a treatment station, characterized in that at least one color camera is used, the color signals of said camera being evaluated for detection of the color of blood, and that the size of the image surface area occupied by the blood is obtained from said color signals.

17. The method according to claim 16, characterized by the use of a digital camera and by the detection of the number of pixels exposed by the color of blood.

18. The method according to claim 16, characterized in that the image signals of the camera emitted in the RGB color space are transformed into another color space.