A tiny, implantable device could detect when tissues in the body spring a leak following gastrointestinal surgery, and it could do so before those leaks become deadly, new animal research suggests.
Their invention, called BioSUM, measures mere millimeters across and is made of tiny metal discs embedded in a gel. The gel changes shape in response to changes in the acidity of its surroundings, and that shape change can be easily seen on an ultrasound. In a preliminary experiment in rats and pigs who'd had GI surgery, BioSUM detected harmful leaks within 10 or 30 minutes of being implanted in the body, respectively.
"It really impacts the quality of life of the patients that develop these leaks if we can catch it early," Dr. Chet Hammill, co-senior study author and an associate professor of surgery at Washington University in St. Louis, told Live Science. It's also a"huge saving to healthcare costs," since a leak can basically double the cost of a surgical procedure, he said.
The gel in the BioSUM device can be tuned to respond to pH ranges relevant to the organs in which it's being implanted. Then, if fluid leaks from an organ, the gel reacts to the sudden change in pH and swells, pushing the metal discs embedded within it further apart from each other. This movement is what's detectable with an ultrasound device.
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