Smart Stent to warn of restenosis

Restenosis is the re-narrowing of blood vessels that can occur following surgery to insert a stent to relieve conditions such as atherosclerosis, which itself is thickening or hardening of the arteries.

Methods to diagnose this condition are invasive, have limited clinical outcomes and are done only when the patient is already feeling symptoms.

Now, a team from Northumbria University, Bristol University and their partners are embarking on an EPSRC-funded project to develop a Smart Stent that can detect and inform the patient and medical practitioner about stent thrombosis at the stent site, which can develop within 24 hours of implant or after months or several years.

“The proposed Smart Stent differentiates the gradual reduction in blood flow from the more frequent variations due to regular blood-pressure fluctuations, even at a very early stage,” said Dr Yu-Sheng Lin, an Assistant Professor in mechanical engineering at the Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology.