Novel implants in test to ease patients' life

By Sena Guler

ANKARA (AA) - A state of art invention is being tested to help the patients who have to live with implants, the man-made devices used to support the treatment of some significant diseases.

Altinbas University in Turkey’s Istanbul and the University of Glasgow in Scotland cooperated in a novel project that would change the future of world medicine.

The implants, which are often used in neuro, and cardiovascular surgery, needs to be taken out of the body for technical controls in case of a failure or to get the data needed to follow-up the disease.

The project of the universities tries to solve this problem by producing Wi-Fi, or wireless, versions that aim to enable access to implants without a surgical operation.

“All of them [implant devices] have limitations including getting the updated data from the devices, changing batteries and wired connections. Those problems bring our attention to the topic to start our research in the area of in-vivo [to be placed inside the human cadaver] communication and try to come up with the platform or structure to be used by multiple devices and make it possible to transmit the data wirelessly and in real-time,” according to Muhammad Ilyas, assistant professor at Altinbas University.

Ilyas said that real-time data transfer may be needed especially in chronic diseases or possible heart attack cases, and for this purpose, they work on the project to share data on the patient’s condition with the doctor through Wi-Fi or 4G/5G to provide updated information.

Touching the battery life of the implant devices, Ilyas said they are also in the research phase on the subject, but this type of critical devices’ battery life is expected to be extended up to a few years thanks to the 5G technology.

- Future of medical science

“The system is in the research process, but I can say that these implants will completely change the future of medical science,” he noted, adding that it will eliminate the need for patients using implants to keep visiting hospitals.

“[…] because data of the patient will be delivered to the doctor with regular updates through any kind of communication device,” he said, adding that people suffering from chronic diseases may lose their lives as they do not realize their critical condition or they are not kept under surveillance routinely.

“Even a second is vital in chronic diseases and attacks,” Ilyas said, adding that the technology will let doctors be informed that the patient is about to suffer an attack before the patient would feel that it is coming.

Noting that the study is one of a kind in the world, Ilyas said they are trying to collect real experimental data and prepare a mathematical model.

“To the best of our knowledge, we prepare ourselves for a state of the art and the first of its kind experimental measurements to get the real-time data using human cadaver,” he said.

Ilyas added in the study, a detailed analysis of the cadaver is performed under the supervision of a certified medical doctor, fresh organs of sheep including heart, stomach, and intestine were placed inside the human cadaver by the doctor.

“The experiments during this study were performed using two different types of antennas including in-vivo and ex-vivo (to be placed outside the human cadaver),” he said.

- History of devices

Speaking on the meaning of the word in-vivo, Deniz Unay, a social media expert said: “The word in-vivo means in the living being including plants and animals.”

He added that in-vivo has an extensive history dating back to when humans started to analyze the anatomy of the human body and plants.

“The history of implantable devices can be traced back to the 1950s. Today, we can see different types of implantable devices helping patients in different hospitals including pacemakers, neurostimulators, insulin pumps, foot drop implants, gastric stimulators and many more,” he added.