Sensor could cut costs and complications associated with treating aneurysms

The advance, led by the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) and reported in ACS Nano, has been shown to accurately measure fluid flow in animal blood vessels in vitro. The team is now working on a wireless system that could allow in vivo testing.

Brain aneurysms occur due to a weakness in the wall of a cerebral artery which causes a localised ballooning of the blood vessel. A recent advance in aneurysm treatment is the development of flow diverter devices, which place a porous stent across the neck of an aneurysm to disrupt the intra-aneurysmal flow.

"We have developed a highly stretchable, hyper-elastic flow diverter using a highly-porous thin film nitinol," said Youngjae Chun, an associate professor in the Swanson School of Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. "None of the existing flow diverters, however, provide quantitative, real-time monitoring of hemodynamics within the sac of cerebral aneurysm. Through the collaboration with… Georgia Tech, we have developed a smart flow-diverter system that can actively monitor the flow alterations during and after surgery."