| abstract |
A thin-walled guiding catheter of the type having a distal end adapted to be formed into curved configurations and passed through branching blood vessels and the like is prepared with a three-layered tubular body portion having a lubricious inner sheath defining a lubricious guiding lumen, a rigid intermediate sheath, and a flexible outer sheath, which may be radiopaque. The distal tip portion thereof has a similar construction, but from which the rigid intermediate sheath is omitted. The guiding catheter exhibits excellent torque response and control while being especially thin-walled, thereby permitting minimization of the outer diameter size while permitting passage of an intravascular catheter and the like through its lumen. |