Researchers create a wireless, battery-free, biodegradable blood flow sensor

A new tool developed by Stanford University researchers can make it easier for doctors to monitor the success of blood vessel surgery. In a paper published on January 8, in Nature Biomedical Engineering, the detailed sensor monitors the flow of blood through an artery. It is biodegradable, non-battery and wireless, so it is compact and does not need to be removed and it can warn the patient's doctor if it is obstructed.

Paper Assistant Professor and Senior Paper Writer Page Fox said, "Measurement of blood flow is important in many medical specialties, so a wireless biodegradable sensor can affect many areas including vascular, implantation, reconstruction, and cardiac surgery." "As we strive to take care of patients from the entire Bay Area, Central Valley, California and beyond, this is a technique that allows us to expand our care without the need for face-to-face visits or trials. Will give. "

Monitoring the success of surgery on blood vessels is challenging because the first signs of trouble are often too late. Until that time, the patient often needs extra surgery, which carries the same risk as the original procedure. This new sensor can allow doctors to keep an eye on a treatment vessel remotely, to create opportunities for earlier intervention.

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Flow or not

The sensor wraps around the healing vessel, where the blood flutter pushes the past to its inner surface. As the shape of that surface changes, it changes the ability to accumulate the electric charge of the sensor, which the doctor can remotely see outside the body from a device located near the skin. This tool solves the sensing of the antenna by pinging an antenna like an ID card scanner. In the future, this device may come in the form of stick-on patches or can be integrated into other technologies, such as a wearable device or smartphone.

The researchers first tested sensors in an artificial setting where they pumped air through an artery-shaped tube to mimic blood flow. In Stanford, a former postdoctoral scholar and paper co-author Surjan Yukitoshi Kaizawa also implanted the sensor around the artery in a rat. Even on such a small scale, the sensor reported successfully the flow of blood to the wireless reader. At this point, they were only interested in finding full blockages, but they see such signs that future versions of this sensor can identify the fluctuation of blood flow.

The sensor is a wireless version of the technology that chemical engineer Jenan Bao is developing artificial limbs to touch the prosthesis.

"It is a history," said K. K. Lee Professor of the School of Engineering and co-senior author of the paper, Bao. "We were always interested in how we can use this type of sensor in medical applications, but it took a while to find the right fit."

Researchers had to modify the contents of their existing sensor so that it is sensitive to blood flutter but is hard enough to hold its shape. They had to take the antenna to a place where it would be safe, which is not affected by beating, and redesign the capacitor so that it can be placed around the artery.

The paper's co-lead author and postdoctoral scholar Levent Beker in Bao Lab said, "This was a very accurate project and many rounds of experiments and new format were needed." "I have always been interested in medical and implant applications and can monitor many surgical operations or open many opportunities of telemedicine."

Make a relationship

The idea of arterial censor began to be shaped when Bao Lab's former postdoctoral partner Clementine Boutry reached Anas Legrand, a postdoctoral fellow at Fox Lab, and added those groups - Johnson and Johnston Professor of Surgery with James Chang's Lab.

Once he set his sights on the biodegradable blood flow monitor, Cooperation has won 2017 Postdocs on Interface Seed Grants from Stanford ChEM-H, which supports Post Doctoral Research Cooperation, which searches for potentially innovative new ideas.

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"We both value our postdoctoral researchers, but this meeting was not an estimate of the right value for long-term productive partnership," said Fox.

Researchers are now looking for the best way to transplant the vessels to sensors and refine their sensitivity. They are also seeing what other ideas will come up with interest in this interdisciplinary field.

Bao said, "Using the sensors, the patient is being allowed to quickly find health-related problems." "For this, people will need to work together from engineering, medical school, and data from the people, and the problems they can solve are very exciting."