A Band-Aid for the Heart? New 3D Printing Method Makes This, and Much More, Possible

In the quest to develop lifelike materials to replace and repair human body parts, scientists face a formidable challenge: Real tissues are often both strong and stretchable and vary in shape and size. A CU Boulder-led team has taken a critical step toward cracking that code. They’ve developed a new way to 3D print material that is at once elastic enough to withstand a heart’s persistent beating, tough enough to endure the crushing load placed on joints, and easily shapable to fit a patient’s unique defects. Read on to learn more.

Monitor Measures Disease Markers

A wearable health monitor can reliably measure levels of important biochemicals in sweat during physical exercise. Read on to learn more about the 3D-printed monitor.

Elastomer Material Flexibility Optimizes Performance

When specifying a high-performance material for a medical device application, temperature, chemical environment and compatibility, hardness, compression set resistance, and certification considerations quickly build stringent material requirements. Expert suppliers consult with OEMs to think creatively, support product development, and collaborate to find solutions that will deliver necessary results.

Advancing Medtech Requires Advanced Battery Technology to Match

In the coming years, companies will continue to evolve ultrasonic metal welding technologies to answer the needs of an ever-changing field of medical devices and the batteries that power them. Developing new assembly technologies will maximize the performance and precision of ultrasonic metal welding to satisfy the new design, size, and power requirements of advanced-performance medical devices.

Wearable Heart Monitor Offers More Comfort, Less Irritation

A team led by RMIT University has made a wearable ECG device that could be used to prevent heart attacks for people with cardiovascular disease, including in remote healthcare and ambulatory care settings.

Shape-Shifting Robotic Catheter Could Make Heart Surgery Safer

A beating heart makes for a formidable surgical arena, but a new robotic catheter could someday equip surgeons to operate in the cardiac environment with greater ease.

Philips Integrates AI in Cardiac Ultrasound and Across Cardiac Care

Royal Philips is integrating AI in its cardiac ultrasound devices and across cardiac care to help improve clinical confidence and increase efficiency. The portable Philips Ultrasound Compact System 5500 CV includes an AI-powered automation tool (the automated strain quantification) to assess the function of the heart’s left ventricle, a key indicator of heart health.

Resorbable Scaffold Outperforms Angioplasty

Scaffold insertion also appeared to be as safe as angioplasty, in terms of procedure-related complications.

Device Helps Prevent Complication During Common Heart Procedure

For some with AFib, a catheter ablation is used to burn or freeze the precise area causing the problem to restore a normal heart rhythm.

Customizable Spun-Fiber Heart Valve Grows with Children

Heart valves can be surgically replaced, but children whose bodies are still growing may need multiple, highly invasive surgeries to replace their valves with larger ones, putting them at risk. Kevin Kit Parker’s team vowed to fix this problem.

Real-Time Guidable-Tip Wire Aids in Surgically Treating Strokes

According to the World Health Organization, strokes are the leading cause of disability and the second-leading cause of death worldwide. One-fourth of people over 25 can expect to experience one during their lifetime.

Dissolving Cardiac Device Monitors, Treats Heart Disease

Nearly 700k people in the U.S. die from heart disease every year. To help prevent those deaths, researchers have developed a new device to monitor and treat heart disease and dysfunction in the days, weeks, or months following such events.

Manufacturing Considerations for Implantable Drug-Delivery Systems

With all the benefits implantable systems offer therapy developers, clinicians, and patients, it is easy to see why market projections for this segment are on the rise.

New AI Model Offers Way to Speed Up Drug Discovery

Researchers at MIT and Tufts University have devised an alternative computational approach based on a type of artificial intelligence algorithm known as a large language model.

The Adoption of Acoustic AI in Healthcare

AI has made a big impact in medicine in the visual realm. By detecting abnormalities, classifying and quantifying cancerous cells, and assisting surgeons with real-time guidance, visual AI has improved early detection, sped up diagnosis, and increased precision and accuracy across a number of medical specialties.

Bioprinted Patches for Heart Repair

A new technology that uses bioprinted patches to repair damaged heart tissue has been proven to be safe and cost-effective for patients.

Monitoring Drug-Induced Cardiotoxicity

Researchers have created an engineered heart via 3D printing technology that allows for early monitoring of drug-induced cardiotoxicity. They produced the heart model using biohybrid 3D printing.

Wearable Sensor Uses Ultrasound to Provide Cardiac Imaging ‘On the Go’

Engineers and physicians have developed a wearable ultrasound device that can assess both the structure and function of the human heart.

Biomaterial Heals Tissues from the Inside Out

A new biomaterial that can be injected intravenously, reduces inflammation in tissue and promotes cell and tissue repair. The injectable biomaterial was tested and proven effective in treating...

Sensor Enables Smart Diapers, Other Health Monitors

A new sensor could help workers in daycares, hospitals, and other settings provide more immediate care to their charges. The new sensor — so cheap and simple to produce that it can be...

An Ultrasoft Material for On-Skin Health Devices

Researchers have created an ultrasoft skin-like material that’s both breathable and stretchable for use in the development of an on-skin, wearable bioelectronic device.

Wearable Belt with Sensors Accurately Measures Heart Failure 24/7

Heart failure is a progressive clinical syndrome characterized by a structural abnormality of the heart, in which the heart is unable to pump sufficient blood to meet the body’s requirements.

Wireless, High-Speed, Low-Power Communications for Implantable Devices

Implantable bioelectronics are now often key in assisting or monitoring vital organs, but they often lack a safe, reliable way of transmitting their data to doctors.

Stretchable Rubber Diode for Medical, Electronic Devices

A fully rubbery stretchable diode maintains performance.

Renamic Neo Offers Complete Wireless Connectivity to Implants

Tiotronik’s Renamic Neo communicates with a medical device implanted in a patient, such as a pacemaker, ICD, or implantable cardiac monitor.

Battery-Free, Light-Powered Pacemaker May Improve Quality of Life for Heart Disease Patients

Atrial fibrillation — a form of irregular heartbeat, or arrhythmia — leads to more than 454,000 hospitalizations and nearly 160,000 deaths in the United States each year.

‘Bionic’ Pacemaker Reverses Heart Failure

A revolutionary pacemaker that re-establishes the heart’s naturally irregular beat is set to be trialed in New Zealand heart patients this year, following successful animal trials.

Folding Design Leads to Heart Sensor with Smaller Profile

As advances in wearable devices push the amount of information they can provide consumers, sensors increasingly must conform to the contours of the body. One approach applies the...

Nontoxic, Variable-Stiffness Threads Enable Dexterous Cardiac Catheters

Engineers at EPFL and ETH have developed a variable stiffness catheter made of nontoxic threads that can transition between soft and rigid states during surgery. It may...