Wearable bioadhesive ultrasound shear wave elastography

Abstract

Acute liver failure (ALF) is a critical medical condition defined as the rapid development of hepatic dysfunction. Conventional ultrasound elastography cannot continuously monitor liver stiffness over the course of rapidly changing diseases for early detection due to the requirement of a handheld probe. In this study, we introduce wearable bioadhesive ultrasound elastography (BAUS-E), which can generate acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) to induce shear waves for the continuous monitoring of modulus changes. BAUS-E contains 128 channels with a compact design with only 24 mm in the azimuth direction for comfortable wearability. We further used BAUS-E to continuously monitor the stiffness of in vivo rat livers with ALF induced by d -galactosamine over 48 hours, and the stiffness change was observed within the first 6 hours. BAUS-E holds promise for clinical applications, particularly in patients after organ transplantation or postoperative care in the intensive care unit (ICU).

Recent Advances in Materials, Devices and Algorithms Toward Wearable Continuous Blood Pressure Monitoring

“…For acoustic and electromagnetic devices, which are significantly influenced by devices interface, the most crucial factor improving signal quality is the matching in acoustic and electrical impedance to effectively suppress interface signal absorption and reflection. A recently developed bioadhesive interface couplant might provide a promising solution for seamless interface and smooth acoustic impedance transition through the utilization of a soft, antidehydrating hydrogel-elastomer hybrid. , The bioadhesive layer functions as a user-friendly interface without any allergic or inflammatory reactions after 48 h of wearing as well as a coupling layer between ultrasound transducer and skin to increase image quality (Figure A). Although an adhesive couplant can partially address the interface coupling and adhesive issue, the development of wearable integrated circuits for in-suit preprocessing and real-time transmission of high-frequency weak signals adds another challenge.…”

“…(A) and (B) Potential solutions utilizing bioadhesives (A) and mechanical support (B) to enhance device-skin interface stability and system robustness on continuous PW measurement systems. (A) Adapted with permission from ref . Copyright 2024 AAAS.…”

Curved and Annular Diaphragm Coupled Piezoelectric Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers for High Transmit Biomedical Applications

“…In the past decades, ultrasonic transducers have gained increasing popularity in applications such as medical imaging [1][2][3], invasive or non-invasive therapy [4,5], biomedical particle manipulation [6][7][8], gesture recognition [9], and neural stimulation [10]. The high transmit performance of the transducers is key for these applications to achieve enhanced pressure output with good signal-to-noise contrast (SNC).…”