Blood Monitoring Implant Designed to Warn of Impending Heart Attacks

A team of scientists from Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) have developed the world's smallest medical implant that monitors your blood and cautions your smartphone on detecting any signs of an impending heart attack.

The newly-developed device consists of two bits; one is the tiny patch that is implanted under the skin and the second is an intelligent patch that is implanted outside the skin.

The wireless prototype, when placed into the interstitial tissue just under the skin of the abdomen, or arms or legs, can check for up to five different substances in the blood with the help of a needle. It produces instant results to one's smartphone via Bluetooth. The device can be easily removed and is fitted with five nano-sized sensors that are coated with enzymes that do the detecting.   

The five indicators measured by the 14 mm device include heart specific muscle protein 'troponin'. Moments before a heart attack, fatigued or oxygen deprived muscles start to break down, and remains of a heart-specific smooth muscle protein triponin are deposited into the blood, reports Extreme Tech.

Reports according to Medical News Today state that each sensor is coated with an enzyme that traps target compounds such as lactate, glucose or ATP.

The second bit, i.e., the intelligent patch that is the size of a credit card, plays two roles. Firstly, it delivers a 1/10 watt of power to the implant via induction through the skin. Secondly, it receives data through radio waves from implants which it processes and sends out via Bluetooth, reports Medical News Today.

"Potentially, we could detect just about anything. In addition, it's very easy to remove and replace the implant, since it's so small," team leader Giovanni de Micheli was quoted as saying in News Max Health. 

This device has been tested in the lab and on animals. It detects both cholesterol and glucose level in blood.

The details will be published and presented at the Design, Automation, and Test in Europe (Date) electronics conference.