Additive Micro/Nano-manufacturing of Structured Piezoelectric Active Materials for Intelligent Stent Monitoring

Cardiovascular diseases, associated with stroke, heart failure, and end-stage renal disease, caused more than 30% of deaths worldwide. As of 2020, 19 million estimated deaths globally are attributed to cardiovascular diseases, which is an increase of 18.7% to that of 2010. Atherosclerosis is the common pathology that leads to this considerable amount of deaths. To treat atherosclerosis, the most common treatment is stenting, where its clinical efficacy resulted into millions of it implanted every year. A problem in this treatment however is the occurrence of restenosis, or the re-narrowing of the blood vessel due to adverse reaction of the body to the stent material. Methods to diagnose this condition however are invasive, have limited clinical outcomes and are done only when the patient is already feeling the symptoms. In addition, some of the implantable devices that diagnose this condition have limited battery-life and require even more surgeries for replacements. By integrating sensors with the stents (smart stents) early symptoms of restenosis can be detected by monitoring the blood fluid dynamics in the implanted area. Our study aims to create a smart stent making use of a new type of stretchable piezoelectric active sensor and radio frequency identification (RFID) technology in combination with artificial intelligence (AI)-based data processing and analytics.