Standard surgical needles used in the medical arena need excellent quality to ensure efficient performance. They are typically used to transmit or withdraw fluid from the body and as such they need to exhibit excellent flow characteristics. To achieve this they need good internal finish and roundness and cylindricity characteristics. Taylor Hobson have a wide range of experience in addressing the particular requirements of surgical needle manufacturers, which typically entails using special stylii to access the narrow diameters of surgical needles.
There is a large amount of work in the field of microneedles, which are being used in a variety of medical areas, including biopsy and drug delivery. Arrays of hollow microneedles can be used to continuously carry drugs into the body using a simple diffusion or pump system. Hollow microneedles could be used to remove fluid from the body for analysis. Microneedles are opening up new areas of medical opportunity like highly targeted drug administration to individual cells, they are also opening a wide variety of metrology challenges which Taylor Hobson are equipped to handle. The challenges include 3D geometric analysis at the micron and nanometric level. For product information click the link below.