Scientists at Northwestern and George Washington Universities have developed a prototype temporary pacemaker that would return the heartbeat to normal after a cardiac injury or operation. What a temporary pacemaker does is sew electrodes on the heart muscle that is connected to an external box and that must be surgically removed days or weeks later, once the heart has managed to return to its normal rhythm.
However, scientists have prevented this temporary pacemaker from ever being removed, as it dissolves only in the body when it is no longer needed, turning lead and its batteries into biocompatible materials.
With a traditional pacemaker, the patient can suffer from distress and discomfort as it is an invasive procedure and it can cause rare but serious complications such as tissue damage, blood clots or possible binding of wires in the tissues.
A perfect alternative
This scientists’ alternative weighs less than half a gram and is 250 microns (0.25 millimeters) thick. This temporary pacemaker can be implanted in the heart where a set of integrated electrodes emits an electrical pulse, drawing energy wirelessly from an external antenna via NFC technology. This means that no large battery, cable or hardware is necessary and that its materials can be absorbed naturally with body fluids in a period of five to seven weeks.
One of the co-leaders of the study, Rishi Arora, believes that implanting biocompatible pacemakers without leads is better than using leads that can become infected and dislodged. “The circuit is implanted directly on the surface of the heart and we can activate it remotely. Over a period of weeks, this new type of pacemaker “dissolves” or degrades on its own, thus avoiding the need to physically remove the pacemaker electrodes, “he says.
A breakthrough for the future
This device at the moment has only been demonstrated in animals such as dogs, rats, mice and rabbits together with human models where it proved to be effective in stimulating hearts of different sizes. The rate of breakdown of the pacemaker can be controlled by its composition and thickness, leaving it up to the body to decide the exact number of days the pacemaker remains active and functioning.
John A. Rogers, leader of the device’s development, believes that placing hardware in or near the heart can lead to infections. This wireless pacemaker overcomes the disadvantages of traditional pacemakers by eliminating wires that would be through the skin that would later require a surgical operation to remove them, so this also lowers costs and improves results in patient care. This new device could be the first step in the future of temporary stimulation technology.