A wireless pacemaker that dissolves after several weeks of use could be used to monitor patients after surgery without invasive leads and wires.
The device can be paired with lightweight skin sensors to monitor heartbeat, temperature, breathing, oxygenation, and a patient鈥檚 physical activity. If human trials show the device to be safe, it could eventually be used in situations that require short-term pacemaking, such as after surgery for congenital heart defects in infants.
鈥淢y main motivation is to give some freedom of movement to the patient,鈥� says Yeon Sik Choi, a postdoctoral fellow in biointegrated electronics at Northwestern Univ.
Choi and his colleagues first reported their battery-free, wireless cardiac pacemaker in the journal Nature Biotechnology in 2021. In the new research, published May 27 in the journal Science, the researchers integrated the flexible, bioresorbable device with a suite of external electronics and wearable controls. This mobile setup could potentially reduce the risk of infection that comes with wires that penetrate the skin and would also negate the need for a follow-up procedure to remove these leads...
The core of the system is the implantable pacemaker, which is flexible, stretchy, and just a few inches long. It鈥檚 made of water-soluble metals (molybdenum and silicon) and degradable polymers, including the dynamic covalent polyurethane, poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid), or PLGA. The metals provide the basis for a...
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