A research team has developed wireless sensors that are designed to monitor intracranial pressure and temperature.
Since the sensors are absorbed by the body, their removal via surgery is not required.
The scientists, from Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, and the engineers, from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, hope that the wireless implants could someday be used to monitor traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients, according to a media release from Washington University School of Medicine.
Rory K. J. Murphy, MD, a neurosurgery resident at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis—first author of the study, published recently in the journal Nature—notes in the release that similar devices used today are based on technology from the 1980s.
“They’re large, they’re unwieldy, and they have wires that connect to monitors in the intensive care unit. They give accurate readings, and they help, but there are ways to make them better,” Murphy states in the release.
Murphy collaborated with engineers in the laboratory of John A. Rogers, PhD, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois, to build new sensors. The devices are made mainly of polylactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA) and silicone, and they can transmit accurate pressure and temperature readings, as well as other information, the release explains.
The researchers tested the sensors in baths of saline solution that caused them to dissolve after a few days. Next, they tested the devices in the brains of laboratory rats, the release continues.
Murphy notes in the release that the sensors could potentially be placed in the brains of TBI patients during surgeries to decrease the pressure inside a TBI patient’s skull.
“The ultimate strategy is to have a device that you can place in the brain—or in other organs in the body—that is entirely implanted, intimately connected with the organ you want to monitor and can transmit signals wirelessly to provide information on the health of that organ, allowing doctors to intervene if necessary to prevent bigger problems,” Murphy says in the release. “And then after the critical period that you actually want to monitor, it will dissolve away and disappear.”
[Source(s): Washington University School of Medicine, EurekAlert]