Micro-Device Could Pick Up Early Signs of Heart Attack or Stroke
upstart writes:
Micro-device could pick up early signs of heart attack or stroke:
In Australia each year, approximately 55,000 people suffer a heart attack, with a similar number suffering from stroke. Many are caused by blood clots that block the flow of blood to the heart, often in at-risk individuals without any physical warning.
However, long before a heart attack or stroke occurs, tiny changes in the blood begin taking place. Often, blood flow is disturbed, leading to blood clotting and inflammation which can block blood vessels.
Award-winning University of Sydney biomedical engineer Dr. Arnold Lining Ju is developing a biomedical micro-device to detect these subtle platelet changes before a heart attack or stroke takes place.
Using a pin-prick test, the micro-device would take a blood sample from a person's finger. The sample would then be analyzed for platelet clotting and white cell inflammation responses, information that would be immediately processed by an external operating system.
[...] Research assistant Laura Moldovan said that, historically, it has been difficult to predict when a heart attack or stroke might happen: "They appear to occur at random, sometimes without any physical symptoms, however in fact there are tiny physical changes that occur in the blood-the key to this device is being able to sensitively monitor these microscopic changes."
Journal Reference:
Lining Arnold Ju, Sabine Kossmann, Yunduo Charles Zhao, et al. Microfluidic post method for 3-dimensional modeling of platelet-leukocyte interactions, Analyst, 2022. DOI: 10.1039/D2AN00270A
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