A new 3D printed implant that can deliver treatment or predict an impending heart attack before a patient shows any physical symptoms has been developed.
Researchers used an inexpensive 3-D printer to develop the custom-fitted, implantable device with embedded sensors that could transform heart treatment and prediction of cardiac disorders.
The 3-D elastic membrane is made of a soft, flexible, silicon material that is precisely shaped to match the heart's outer layer of the wall.
The team can print tiny sensors onto the membrane that can precisely measure temperature, mechanical strain and pH, among other markers, or deliver a pulse of electricity in cases of arrhythmia.
Those sensors could assist physicians with determining the health of the heart, deliver treatment or predict an impending heart attack before a patient exhibits any physical signs.
"Each heart is a different shape, and current devices are one-size-fits-all and don't at all conform to the geometry of a patient's heart," said Igor Efimov, from the Washington University in St Louis.
"With this application, we image the patient's heart through MRI or CT scan, then computationally extract the image to build a 3-D model that we can print on a 3-D printer. We then mold the shape of the membrane that will constitute the base of the device deployed on the surface of the heart," said Efimov.
Ultimately, the membrane could be used to treat diseases of the ventricles in the lower chambers of the heart or could be inserted inside the heart to treat a variety of disorders, including atrial fibrillation.
"Currently, medical devices to treat heart rhythm diseases are essentially based on two electrodes inserted through the veins and deployed inside the chambers," Efimov said.
"Contact with the tissue is only at one or two points, and it is at a very low resolution. What we want to create is an approach that will allow you to have numerous points of contact and to correct the problem with high-definition diagnostics and high-definition therapy," said Efimov.
The findings were published in Nature Communications.
