Continuous in vivo blood pressure measurements using a fully implantable wireless SAW sensor

In this paper, the development of a fully implantable wireless sensor able to provide continuous real-time accurate pressure measurements is presented. Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) technology was used to deposit resonators on crystalline quartz wafers; the wafers were then assembled to produce a pressure sensitive device. Excitation and reading via a miniature antenna attached to the pressure sensor enables continuous external interrogation. The main advantages of such a configuration are the long term stability of quartz and the low power necessary for the interrogation, which allows 24/7 interrogation by means of a hand-held, battery powered device. Such data are of vital importance to clinicians monitoring and treating the effects of hypertension and heart failure. A prototype was designed and tested using both a bio-phantom test rig and an animal model. The pressure traces for both compare very well with a commercially available catheter tip pressure transducer. The work presented in this paper is the first known wireless pressure data from the left ventricle of the heart of a living swine.