Vascular diseases are public enemy number one: the leading killers worldwide, accounting for nearly a third of all human deaths on the planet.
Continuous monitoring of hemodynamics – blood flow through the vascular system – can improve treatments and patient outcomes. But deadly conditions like hypertension and atherosclerosis occur in long and twisting vascular system with arteries of varying diameter and curvature, and existing clinical devices are limited by their bulk, rigidity, and utility.
Georgia Institute of Technology researcher Woon-Hong Yeo and his collaborators are trying to improve the odds for patients with development of an implantable soft electronic monitoring system. Their new device, consisting of a smart stent and printed soft sensors, is capable of wireless real-time monitoring of hemodynamics without batteries or circuits.
“This electronic system is designed to wirelessly deliver hemodynamic data, including arterial pressure, pulse, and flow, to an external data acquisition system, and it is super small and thin, which is why we can use a catheter to deliver it, anywhere inside the body,” said Yeo, whose team released its study this week in the journal Science Advances.
Yeo added, smiling, “It’s like a stent with multiple tricks up its sleeve.”
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