This Battery-Free, Biodegradable Sensor Can Monitor Blood Flow

Scientists of Stanford have recently developed a battery-free and biodegradable sensor which has the ability to monitor the blood flow in an artery. The sensor helps doctors succeed in performing blood vessel surgeries. We do not need to remove the sensor. Researchers also claim that it can also warn the doctor should there be a blockage.

Arteries carry blood from the heart to other body parts

Paige Fox - one of Stanford University’s assistant professors shared:

It is a huge challenge to monitor the success rate of surgeries on our blood vessels since even the very first signs of trouble come somewhat too late most of the time. When the signs are finally noticeable, the patients often need to have additional surgeries that may carry similar risks that the original surgery also has. This new device would allow doctors to keep track of, from afar, a healing blood vessel, which creates many opportunities for making earlier interventions.

The sensor wraps around the artery

This sensor would snugly wrap around the healing blood vessel, where its inside surface will be pushed by the pulses of the blood that goes by. When the surface of that spot changes its shape, it will alter the ability of the sensor in storing electric charge, something that can be remotely detected by doctors from another device that is located nearby the patient’s skin but not inside the body.

This device will solicit a reading through pinging the sensor’s antenna, like an ID card scanner. At some point in the future, the device may come in a different form of stick-on patches or be also used in other technology, such as a smartphone or a wearable device.

At first, the researchers build an artificial setting by pumping air into a tube with a size similar to an artery in order to mimic the pulse of the blood flow. This setting was used to test the device.

A former postdoctoral scholar at Stanford - Surgeon Yukitoshi Kaizawa also put the device around a rat’s artery. The sensor still succeeded in reporting to the wireless reader about the pulse of the blood flow even at a small scale like that.

The researchers are currently trying to figure out the most efficient way to affix the device to the blood vessels as well as refine their sensitivity. As interest is growing in this interdisciplinary area, the researchers are also hoping to see what other ideas will come.