Stretchable balloon electronics for cardiac arrhythmias

Breakthrough advancement in the diagnosis and treatment of cardiac arrhythmias is the development of the endocardial balloon catheter with the stretchable electronics integrated into it. A team of material scientists, physicians and mechanical and electrical engineers led by John A. Rogers has developed this device. Conventionally the endocardial balloon catheter is inserted in combination with the tracking catheter to track the heart point by point to spot for the irregularities. The endocardial catheter then ablates the problem spots one by one.

With the development of stretchable balloon electronics the endocardial balloon catheter with the integrated stretchable electronics can serve both the purposes i.e. it can map the problem areas with the multifunctional sensors and can ablate them with the electrodes simultaneously for most parts of the heart. This technology is advancement in the non invasive methods to diagnose and treat arrhythmias.

The latest device has a collection of multifunctional sensors to detect the temperature, blood pressure, cardiac muscle electrical activity and blood flow as the expandable balloon presses against the cardiac tissue along with the ablation electrodes. The meshwork of tiny sensors is mounted on the conventional endocardial balloon catheter. The greatest challenge in the development of this technology was to ensure the functionality of the sensors at all the levels of the balloon inflation. The sensors at the core of the balloon had to beer more strain than at the ends and the challenge was to secure the optimal functioning of all the sensors at different levels of strain.
This device saves on time of the doctors, and has added safety, effectiveness and precision to the diagnosis and treatment of the cardiac arrhythmias. John A Rogers aims at developing even smaller sensors to mount on the endocardial balloon and increase their density on the surface of the endocardial balloon so that even the smallest of the problem tissue can be detected and ablated to cure arrhythmias.