Design of a bracelet embedding high-frequency ultrasound transducers to acquire venous blood echogenicity spectral data for patient monitoring

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Every day, patients admitted to critical care units are experiencing complications and often**fatal deteriorating conditions. Severe complications leading to the syndrome of multiple organ**dysfunctions or MODS result in a mortality rate at 41%. The MODS condition is characterized**by a severe acute inflammatory reaction leading to vascular thrombosis, septic shock and**impaired oxygenation of organs and tissues. Inflammatory blood markers can be prescribed**for patient monitoring but results are obtained hours or days after sampling. In conditions**where rapid medical decisions are required to improve the likelihood of patient survival, those**blood tests are often of no value. We propose in this grant application a new bed side**ultrasound technology to continuously monitor the state of inflammation for optimum patient**treatment.**Red blood cell (RBC) aggregation is a strong marker of inflammation and has the unique**advantage of offering continuous monitoring capability through ultrasound imaging. This grant**proposes the development and integration of technologies to provide point-of-care patient**monitoring based on the analysis of high-frequency ultrasound spectral data to measure the**time-varying clustering of RBCs flowing within a superficial vein of the arm or ankle.**Preclinical results in a porcine model confirmed the capability of monitoring inflammationpromoted**aggregation of RBCs with ultrasound. The proposed algorithm is patented and we**propose the development of a portable instrument for use in restricted areas as surgery**rooms and intensive care units. This instrument will consist in a bracelet attached innocuously**to the patient and embedding high-frequency ultrasound transducers, an occluding device to**control the blood flow, and a positioning device to collect ultrasound data processed by a**miniaturized computer instrument to provide feedback to clinicians on the state of RBC**aggregation.