By Eva Briggs, MD
I remember the first cell phone that I ever saw. It belonged to my nephew, an early adopter.
I recall it being roughly the size and shape of a concrete block.
It was a far cry from today’s powerful smart phones that easily fit into a pocket.
Medical technology, too, continues to evolve to become smaller yet more powerful.
I recently read about a tiny absorbable pacemaker that is roughly the size of a grain of rice! It measures 1.8 millimeters wide, 3.6 millimeters long and 1 millimeter thick.
Engineers at Northwestern University developed this technology. They set out to develop a device that could be used in newborn infants with congenital heart disease. These babies sometimes need a temporary pacemaker after heart surgery. Existing temporary pacemakers were just too big. This little pacemaker will also be able to be used for older children — or adults — who need a pacemaker temporarily while their heart recovers following surgery.
The pacemaker is soft, flexible and wireless. It can fit into the tip of a syringe, allowing it to be placed through a blood vessel to reach the heart. No surgery required.
Current temporary pacemakers require the insertion of wires which are later removed. These wires go through the chest wall, potentially allowing infection. Sometimes scar tissue forms around the wires. The scar tissue can tear and bleed during the removal process.
The new device is made from bioabsorbable materials that are safely absorbed by the body in seven to 10 days. This is similar to absorbable sutures. This eliminates the risks and dangers of wires and their removal: infection, dislodgment, tissue damage, bleeding and blood clots.
A skin-mounted patch worn on the body communicates with the device telling it when to send an electrical signal to the heart muscle. When it detects an irregular or slow heartbeat it signals to the pacemaker that the heart needs an electrical pulse. The patch communicates via infrared light that safely passes through the body to the tiny pacemaker. The power for the pacemaker itself from comes from two different metals inside the device. They form a battery when in contact with bodily fluids.
The tiny size means that doctors could potentially insert several pacemakers into a single patient. This would permit stimulation of different segments of the heart muscle to improve synchronization of the heart muscle contraction.
The technology used to develop the miniature pacemaker may have future applications to help heal nerve damage and broken bones, to treat wounds and block pain.
Eva Briggs is a retired medical doctor who practiced in Central New York for several decades. She lives in Marcellus.