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A preliminary study suggests that a new skin sensor could help prevent life-threatening crises for the millions of people living with hydrocephalus, provided that causes fluid to accumulate in the brain.
The Siddharth Krishnan, PhD candidate at the Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering. "When they fail, there is no way of quickly diagnosing it." The symptoms are non-specific: "headache and nausea."
Currently, the only way to diagnose a shunt is through brain scans and sometimes even surgery.
The perils of missing a shunt are enormous. "It can lead to coma, seizures, and eventually death," Krishnan said. "And the uncertainty that accompanies this can wreak havoc with families lives, because they know the next headache could be catastrophic."
In the small pilot study, conducted in five patients, researchers determined that the new wireless, band-aid-shaped sensor could detect the difference between Science Translational Medicine.
In other words, it could warn patients and doctors if the headache is a signal that the shunt has failed.
If the findings are more likely to be revolutionized the way hydrocephalus is managed, that said the study's lead author Siddharth Krishnan.
Approximately one million Americans have hydrocephalus and one in every thousand babies, according to the Hydrocephalus Association. In addition, it is often a complication of premature birth.
The new device developed by Krishnan and his colleagues has a tiny heater in the middle and a sensor on either end. It's placed on the skin where the shunt is located just below the surface. When the tiny apartment has the temperature of a small area of a couple of degrees, it also heats the fluid inside the shunt at that spot. If the shunt is working, the sensors will either detect the heat from the warm fluid as it moves down the shunt.
Krishnan and colleagues are planning a much larger study-involving 100 patients-in hopes that the results will be replicated.
The researchers have taken a "step forward in a long journey," said Dr. Shenandoah Robinson, a professor in the division of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Medicine. "Any step forward is important." "It would be nice to have diagnose shunt malfunction."
Robinson can imagine possible issues that would interfere with the device in some patients: obesity, for example. Still, she said, "It is possible that it may be useful in a small fraction of patients.
-Linda Carroll
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