Medical Design Briefs - January 2025 - 26

Tiny
vessels
Coronary
arteries
MAYO
©2016
Microvascular disease is a condition in which tiny blood vessels in the heart are not working properly, resulting in
reduced blood flow to the heart. (Credit: Mayo Clinic)
more physical activity, the majority
of patients in the study also showed
a connection between the changes in
their coronary flow reserve, which is a
measure of maximum blood flow, and
changes in their quality-of-life responses
on the survey. This points to the link
between the physiological measurement
and angina symptoms. "
Dr. Lerman notes that more studies
are needed to better understand how
the reducer stent works and its longterm
effects on blood flow. The stent
did not improve chest pain symptoms
in 20-30 percent of the participants, so
future research studies will need to better
identify which patients respond best
to this therapy.
This article was written by Terri Malloy,
Mayo Clinic Communications. For more
information, visit https://newsnetwork.
mayoclinic.org.
Researchers Develop Clinically Validated,
Wearable Ultrasound Patch for Continuous
Blood Pressure Monitoring
The soft and stretchy
patch adheres to the skin.
University of California - San
Diego, San Diego, CA
A team of researchers at the University
of California - San Diego has developed
a new and improved wearable
ultrasound patch for continuous and
noninvasive blood pressure monitoring.
Their work marks a major milestone,
as the device is the first wearable ultrasound
blood pressure sensor to undergo
rigorous and comprehensive clinical validation
on over 100 patients.
The technology, published in Nature Biomedical
Engineering, has the potential to improve
the quality of cardiovascular health
monitoring in the clinic and at home.
" Traditional blood pressure measurements
with a cuff, which are limited to
providing one-time blood pressure values,
can miss critical patterns. Our wearable
patch offers a continuous stream of
blood pressure waveform data, allowing
it to reveal detailed trends in blood pressure
fluctuations, " says study co-first author
Sai Zhou, who recently graduated
26
This small, stretchy skin patch uses ultrasound to continuously monitor blood pressure deep inside the body. A
comprehensive clinical validation on 117 subjects, including patients in the intensive care unit, has demonstrated
its potential as a simpler and more reliable alternative to current clinical methods for monitoring blood pressure.
(Credit: David Baillot/UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering)
with his PhD in materials science and engineering
from the UC San Diego Jacobs
School of Engineering.
The patch is a soft and stretchy device,
about the size of a postage stamp, that adheres
to the skin. When worn on the forearm,
it offers precise, real-time readings
of blood pressure deep within the body.
The patch is made of a silicone elastomer
that houses an array of small piezoelectric
transducers sandwiched between
stretchable copper electrodes. The transducers
transmit and receive ultra sound
waves that track changes in the diameter
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of blood vessels, which are then converted
into blood pressure values.
n Technological Improvements to
Wearable Ultrasound
The wearable ultrasound patch builds
upon an earlier prototype that was pioneered
by the lab of Sheng Xu, a professor
in the Aiiso Yufeng Li Family
Department of Chemical and Nano Engineering
at UC San Diego. Researchers
re-engineered the patch with two key improvements
to enhance its performance
for continuous blood pressure monitorMedical
Design Briefs, January 2025

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Medical Design Briefs - January 2025

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