Medical Design Briefs - July 2021 - 30

from biodegradable polymers to hydrogels,
silicones and ceramics - without
the need for rigorous optimization or
specialist equipment.
" We're able to produce 3D structures
that can be just 200 µm across, the
width of four human hairs, and with
complexity that rivals that achievable
by light-based fabrication techniques.
" It could be a massive accelerator for
biofabrication and tissue engineering
research. "
The research was supported by the St.
Vincent's Hospital Melbourne Research
Endowment Fund, Victorian Medical
Research Acceleration Fund, NHMRCMRFF
Investigator Grant, and Australian
Technology Network of Universities
Industry Doctoral Training Centre.
ACMD's collaborative approach brings
together leading tertiary institutions
including RMIT University, the University
of Melbourne, Swinburne University of
Technology,
and
the
University
of
Wollongong, research institutes and St.
Vincent's Hospital Melbourne, where the
center is based, to take on today's toughest
healthcare challenges.
" Printing between the lines: Intricate
biomaterial structures fabricated via
Negative Embodied Sacrificial Temp -
late 3D (NEST3D) Printing, " with
RMIT co-authors Dr Anita Quigley and
Professor Elena Pigorova, and collaborators
from University of Melbourne
(Dr
Serena
Duchi,
Dr
Carmine
Onofrillo), is published in Advanced
Materials Technologies (DOI: 10.1002/
admt.202100189).
This article was written by Gosia
Kaszubska, RMIT University. For more information,
visit www.rmit.edu.au.
Moving One Step Closer to Personalized Anesthesia
The device continuously
measures the blood
concentration of propofol.
EPFL
Lausanne, Switzerland
Anesthesia may be an exact science, but
it's not yet fully personalized. Anes -
thesiologists use a variety of methods to
calculate the right dose for a given patient:
clinical studies, medical databases and laboratory
measurements, for example.
However, every individual responds to
anesthetics in a different way, and there's
no way of knowing what that response will
be until the anesthetic is administered.
Today patients often receive supplemental
doses of an anesthetic during
their operation based on their reaction.
The role of anesthesiologists is to make
sure that a patient doesn't wake up too
soon and has no memory of the procedure,
but they must use the smallest possible
amount of drugs, which can often
be taxing on the body. In reality, the supplemental
doses are administered with
no knowledge of what the actual drug
concentration already is in the patient.
To solve that problem, researchers at
EPFL's Integrated Systems Laboratory
(LSI) in the School of Engineering,
working in association with the Lausanne
University Hospital (CHUV) and the
Polytechnic University of Turin, have
developed a system that can measure
propofol concentration in patients as
they're being operated on and adjust the
doses they're administered accordingly.1
" Scientists have been working for years
to develop sensors that can instantly meas30
Intro
Cov
The
smart pen for direct and continuous classification of anesthetics in human serum. (Credit: EPFL)
ure blood concentrations of compounds
in anesthetized patients, so that doctors
can personalize the doses, " says Sandro
Carrara, a professor at the EPFL School of
Engineering. " Propofol is one of the main
compounds used in anesthesia, but it's
also one of the hardest to measure. "
■ A Smart Syringe
The researchers' device looks like a
huge syringe. Its needle contains sensor
electrodes that measure propofol concentrations
in a patient's blood, while
the electronics for the sensors - developed
at LSI - are contained in a central
control box. The sensors' measurements
are analyzed using artificial intelligence.
" The reason why propofol is so hard
to measure is that it tends to stick to a
needle's tip, distorting the results, " says
Carrara. His team tried out various
methods for resolving this issue before
finally deciding on machine learning.
Thierry Buclin, pharmacology professor
and chief of the CHUV's clinical
www.medicaldesignbriefs.com
ToC
+
-
A
pharmacology division, says, " Propofol
is one of the best anesthetics out there,
but getting the dosage just right can be
complicated. So an easy-to-use system
that can monitor propofol concentrations
in the operating room would be a
major step forward in surgery and
intensive care. "
The LSI researchers have confirmed
the accuracy of their device through in
vitro tests on human blood samples. The
next step will be to conduct tests in vivo.
Their findings have been published in
IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits
and Systems.
Reference
1. S. Aiassa et al., " Smart Portable Pen for
Continuous Monitoring of Anaesthetics in
Human Serum With Machine Learning, "
in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits
and Systems, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 294-302, April
2021, doi: 10.1109/TBCAS.2021. 3067388.
This article was written by Clara Marc,
EPFL. For more information, visit https://
actu.epfl.ch.
Medical Design Briefs, July 2021
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Medical Design Briefs - July 2021

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