Multiple-celled safety package, needle guard and safe disposal module for prefilled medication cartridge

摘要

A self-packaging safety syringe set (2) uses a unitary molded set of enclosure units (8, 104) sized for housing conventional cartridge- needle units (12) therein. The set of enclosure units are connected to one another by frangible connections (64, 66; 130, 138). The cartridge- needle unit has a hollow barrel (14) with a needle assembly (24) mounted to one end and a piston (16) mounted therein. Each enclosure unit includes a body section (38, 106), a stem section (44, 108) frangibly connected to one end of the body section, and an end cap (52, 110) connected to the other end of the body section. The frangible connection (48, 118) is broken to remove the stem section to expose the needle (26) for use. The removed stem section is used to drive the piston within the barrel. After use, the barrel is pulled back through the body section so that the needle is completely housed within the body section. At that point radially inwardly extending spring fingers (84, 132) engage a shoulder (76) on the hub (34) of the needle assembly to keep the needle assembly from being withdrawn from the body section to permit a safe disposal of the used syringe. The syringe set needs no special packaging and no holders for the cartridge-needle units, the enclosure units serving as both.