Enhancing cardiovascular health monitoring: Simultaneous multi-artery cardiac markers recording with flexible and bio-compatible AlN piezoelectric sensors

• Published in: Biosensors & bioelectronics Vol. 267; p. 116790
• Main Authors: Cinquino, Marco, Demir, Suleyman Mahircan, Shumba, Angela Tafadzwa, Schioppa, Enrico Junior, Fachechi, Luca, Rizzi, Francesco, Qualtieri, Antonio, Patrono, Luigi, Mastronardi, Vincenzo Mariano, De Vittorio, Massimo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier B.V 01.01.2025
• Subjects: Adult; Aluminum nitride; Arteries; Biosensing Techniques - instrumentation; biosensors; Blood pressure; Blood Pressure - physiology; Cardiovascular Diseases - diagnosis; Cardiovascular parameters; early diagnosis; echocardiography; electrocardiography; electrodes; Equipment Design; Flexible piezoelectric sensor; Health monitoring; Heart Rate; Humans; Male; males; Monitoring, Physiologic - instrumentation; Monitoring, Physiologic - methods; patients; Pulse Wave Analysis - instrumentation; Pulse wave velocity; tibia; Health monitoring; Heart rate; Flexible piezoelectric sensor; Cardiovascular parameters; Pulse wave velocity; Blood pressure; Aluminum nitride
• ISSN: 0956-5663; 1873-4235; 1873-4235
• DOI: 10.1016/j.bios.2024.116790

Continuous monitoring of cardiovascular parameters like pulse wave velocity (PWV), blood pressure wave (BPW), stiffness index (SI), reflection index (RI), mean arterial pressure (MAP), and cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI) has significant clinical importance for the early diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). Standard approaches, including echocardiography, impedance cardiography, or hemodynamic monitoring, are hindered by expensive and bulky apparatus and accessibility only in specialized facilities. Moreover, noninvasive techniques like sphygmomanometry, electrocardiography, and arterial tonometry often lack accuracy due to external electrical interferences, artifacts produced by unreliable electrode contacts, misreading from placement errors, or failure in detecting transient issues and trends. Here, we report a bio-compatible, flexible, noninvasive, low-cost piezoelectric sensor for continuous and real-time cardiovascular monitoring. The sensor, utilizing a thin aluminum nitride film on a flexible Kapton substrate, is used to extract heart rate, blood pressure waves, pulse wave velocities, and cardio-ankle vascular index from four arterial pulse sites: carotid, brachial, radial, and posterior tibial arteries. This simultaneous recording, for the first time in the same experiment, allows to provide a comprehensive cardiovascular patient's health profile. In a test with a 28-year-old male subject, the sensor yielded the SI = 7.1 ± 0.2 m/s, RI = 54.4 ± 0.5 %, MAP = 86.2 ± 1.5 mmHg, CAVI = 7.8 ± 0.2, and seven PWVs from the combination of the four different arterial positions, in good agreement with the typical values reported in the literature. These findings make the proposed technology a powerful tool to facilitate personalized medical diagnosis in preventing CVDs.