ArticleScience advances2025
Instant variable stiffness in cardiovascular catheters based on fiber jamming.
Article in Science advances, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Cooperative integrated surgical robots for high-performance targeted therapies.Innovation (Cambridge (Mass.)) · 2026Review
- Multiscale Architecture Governs Stability in Suction-Actuated Variable Stiffness Catheters.Journal of biomechanical engineering · 2026Article
- Mechanically adaptive materials with tunable stiffness for biomedical devices: Mechanisms, applications, and perspectives.Materials today. Bio · 2026Review
- Magnetically controlled microrobotic system for programmable stiffness tuning and active steering of microcatheters.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Stable magnetic soft structures.Science advances · 2025Article
- Dynamic Rigidity Control for Supportive Sheaths in Endovascular Procedures.Journal of biomechanical engineering · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Variable stiffness (VS) has revolutionized miniature surgical instruments, including cardiovascular catheters for minimally invasive surgeries (MISs), enabling advanced capabilities in stiffness modulation and multi-curvature bending. However, existing VS catheters with phase-changing materials are slow in softening and stiffening rates (≈90 s), which can lead to substantial increase in surgery duration. To address the slow stiffness change, we propose a VS catheter based on fiber jamming (FJ) that achieves instant stiffness changes (≤300 ms), enabling seamless catheter operations without delays. Moreover, our catheter, incorporating hundreds of ultrathin fibers into a slender 2.3-mm catheter body, achieves up to 6.5-fold stiffness changes. With adequate stiffness change, our two-segment catheter achieves complex bending profiles within seconds. In addition, the FJ-based design does not require electric currents or heating inside the human body, minimizing patient risks. This FJ-based VS catheter, with instantaneous response, adequate stiffness change, and enhanced safety, can potentially establish benchmarks in MIS, allowing medical practitioners to effectively address formidable diseases.
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Registered trials
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