Miniaturisation and design-for-manufacture of a fibre-optic pressure and flow sensor for guiding minimally invasive cardiovascular therapies

用于指导微创心血管治疗的光纤压力和流量传感器的小型化和制造设计

• 批准号: 42920
• 金额: $ 41.52万
• 依托单位: ECHOPOINT MEDICAL LTD
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Study
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=42920
• 关键词: Miniaturisation; design; manufacture; fibre; optic

Echopoint Medical are a new med-tech start-up who are focused on developing new technology to significantly improve diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease (CHD).Globally, cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death among women and men (1.8M patients in the UK). Many of these patients have narrowings or blockages of blood vessels in their heart that limit blood flow, which can lead to chronic pain (angina) and heart attacks. One of the most common treatments is to use a wire mesh tube, known as a "stent", to hold the diseased vessel open and restore adequate blood flow to the heart muscle. During the implantation of these stents, clinicians' treatment decisions are often guided by data from medical devices placed inside the arteries of the heart. However, today's devices provide only incomplete information about disease in the heart and consequently many patients are incompletely or incorrectly treated. Women with cardiovascular disease are underserved: compared with men, they present with a higher burden of symptoms and experience similar or worse outcomes, but are less likely to have obstructions that can be treated by stents.Echopoint will address a key need: to provide concurrent pressure and flow measurements from inside coronary arteries to significantly improve diagnosis and treatment for patients with cardiovascular disease -- particularly those with obstructive coronary artery disease and coronary microvascular dysfunction. The applicants have developed new technology that uses miniature fibre optic sensors to measure both blood pressure and flow from inside arteries. These sensors will provide key clinical data to improve clinical decision making about whether to place a stent in the vessel and also to guide treatments for patients who do not receive stents.Funding from this project will be transformative and enable Echopoint Medical to offer a cost-effective product for the NHS. Our current sensor has been shown to be highly accurate; however, we face two key challenges: 1) a size reduction to permit integration into devices called guidewires that are used in current clinical practice and 2) a significant reduction in manufacturing costs. For the first, we will perform the key step of reducing the sensor from two optical fibres to a single optical fibre: a challenging but attainable with close links to the University College London. For the second, we will work closely with manufacturing subcontractors in the UK to ensure scale-up with significant cost reductions for competing effectively in global markets.

Echopoint Medical是一家新的Med-Tech初创企业，致力于开发新技术，以显着改善心血管疾病的诊断和治疗（CHD）。全球性，心血管疾病是男性和男性的主要死亡原因（180万患者英国）。这些患者中的许多患者的心脏中有狭窄或血管阻塞，这些血管限制了血液的流动，这会导致慢性疼痛（心绞痛）和心脏病发作。最常见的治疗方法之一是使用金属丝管（称为“支架”）保持疾病的血管打开并恢复足够的血液流向心脏肌肉。在植入这些支架期间，临床医生的治疗决定通常受到心脏动脉内部医疗设备的数据的指导。但是，当今的设备仅提供有关心脏中疾病的不完整信息，因此许多患者未完全或不正确地治疗。患有心血管疾病的妇女服务不足：与男性相比，她们的症状负担更高，经历相似或更糟糕的结果，但可能会受到支架可以治疗的障碍物的可能性较小。eChopoint将满足关键需求：提供同时发生的需求：从冠状动脉内部动脉的压力和流动测量值可显着改善心血管疾病患者的诊断和治疗，尤其是那些患有阻塞性冠状动脉疾病和冠状动脉微血管功能障碍的患者。申请人开发了新技术，该技术使用微型光纤传感器来测量血压和从动脉内部的流动。这些传感器将提供关键的临床数据，以改善有关是否将支架放在容器中的临床决策，并指导未接受支架的患者的治疗。从该项目中获得的资金将是变革性的，并使Echopoint Medical能够提供成本 - NHS的有效产品。我们当前的传感器已被证明是高度准确的。但是，我们面临两个关键挑战：1）尺寸降低，以允许在当前临床实践中使用的设备集成到名为GuideWires的设备，以及2）显着降低了制造成本。首先，我们将执行将传感器从两个光纤降低到单个光纤的关键步骤：具有挑战性但可以通过与伦敦大学学院的密切联系来实现。在第二个方面，我们将与英国的制造分包商紧密合作，以确保在全球市场有效竞争的成本大幅降低。