Georgia Tech‘s Woon-Hong Yeo and colleagues have developed a prototype smart stent and printed soft sensor system which can wirelessly monitor blood flow through the vascular system in real-time, without batteries or circuits.
The small and thin stent can be placed anywhere inside the body to continuously measure arterial pressure, pulse, and flow.
When the stent is implanted to prevent an artery from narrowing in atherosclerosis, it also constantly captures data, detecting stent defects, placement or blood flow issues. This could replace the need for angiograms, which are periodic, expensive, and use dyes and radiation.