A Novel Fully Implantable Wireless Sensor System for Monitoring Hypertension Patients

• Published in: IEEE transactions on biomedical engineering Vol. 59; no. 11; pp. 3124 - 3130
• Main Authors: Cleven, Nina J., Schmitz-Rode, Thomas, Mokwa, Wilfried, Müntjes, Jutta A., Fassbender, Holger, Urban, Ute, Görtz, Michael, Vogt, Holger, Gräfe, Maik, Göttsche, Thorsten, Penzkofer, Tobias
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States IEEE 01.11.2012; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Animals; Biomedical electronics; Biomedical monitoring; biomedical telemetry; Blood pressure; Blood Pressure Monitoring, Ambulatory - instrumentation; Blood Pressure Monitoring, Ambulatory - methods; blood-pressure measurement; Electronics, Medical; Femoral Artery - surgery; Humans; hypertension; Hypertension - diagnosis; Hypertension - physiopathology; implantable biomedical devices; Implants; Models, Biological; Prostheses and Implants; Prosthesis Implantation; Sensor systems; Sheep; Telemedicine - instrumentation; Telemedicine - methods; Telemetry; Temperature measurement; Temperature sensors; Wireless Technology - instrumentation
• ISSN: 0018-9294; 1558-2531
• DOI: 10.1109/TBME.2012.2216262

This paper presents a novel fully implantable wireless sensor system intended for long-term monitoring of hypertension patients, designed for implantation into the femoral artery with computed tomography angiography. It consists of a pressure sensor and a telemetric unit, which is wirelessly connected to an extracorporeal readout station for energy supply and data recording. The system measures intraarterial pressure at a sampling rate of 30 Hz and an accuracy of ±1.0 mmHg over a range of 30-300 mmHg, while consuming up to 300 μW. A special peel-away sheath introducer set was developed to support the implantation procedure. The system delivered stable measurements in initial animal trials in sheep, with results being in good agreement with reference sensor systems.