A Self-Powered Medical Device for Blood Irradiation Therapy

Implantable wireless devices may allow localized real-time biomedical treating and monitoring. However, such devices require a power source, which ideally, should be self-powered and not battery dependent. In this paper, we present a novel self-powered light therapeutic device which is designed to implement blood irradiation therapy. This device is self-powered by a miniaturized turbine-based generator which uses hydraulic flow energy as its power source. The research presented in this paper may become the first step towards a new type of biomedical self-operational micromechanical devices deployed for biomedical applications. 1. Introduction Implantable wireless devices may allow localized real-time biomedical treating and monitoring. However, such devices require a power source, which ideally, should be self-powered and not battery dependent. A human body holds within it a broad variety of potential power sources. This includes mechanical energy (in the form of body movements, muscle stretching, and blood vessel contractions) and hydraulic energy (in the form of blood flow). However, it is of great challenge to efficiently convert these power sources into electrical energy. Over the last years, great progress has been made in the field of endovascular intervention as various intravascular implantable devices and techniques have been developed. This includes numerous devices used for mechanical vascular repair as well as new technologies for better treatment and diagnostics. Balloon angioplasty, a technique used for mechanically widening a narrowed blood vessel, represents the beginning of a new era of treating cardiovascular disease. However, restenosis (renarrowing of vessels) and arterial lesions that are likely to dissect after angioplasty led to the development and usage of stents [1]. To date, it is still unknown whether stenting improves long-term clinical outcomes as compared with standard balloon angioplasty, as restenosis and other related complications continue to occur after both procedures [2]. Hence, the ongoing search for a proper solution has not yet come to an end and major effort has been and is still invested in order to improve stent design and engineering [3]. These efforts led to an evolution in regard to stent development starting from classical bare metal stents through the introduction of drug eluting stents, which are stents designed to reduce restenosis by eluting active substances over time [4]. Recently, a new generation of stents has been developed, for example, absorbable stents which mechanically support the vessel