Design and development of mobile cardiac marker monitoring system for prevention of acute cardiovascular disease

We developed a body-mounted, minimally-invasive, diagnostic system that is capable of quantifying biochemical markers relevant to the occurrence of a myocardial infarction. A minimally-invasive, blood-sampling technique that includes the use of a microneedle; the pretreatment of blood samples by flow-through-holes (FTH) procedure; and a high-sensitivity, multiple-immune, electrochemical detection technology, were used in the sensor study. The minimally-invasive microneedle was used to collect 20–30 µl of blood, and the blood was pretreated to remove blood cells by flowing through holes and microfluidic layers. An electrochemical sensing element was used to detect the biochemical markers in the blood plasma. The sensing element removed noise from the signal of interest and amplified the detectable electric signals through a three-dimensional electrode array. The size of the cardiac marker monitoring system, including the signal measurement, signal processing, and transmission systems and nine disposable patches, was 110 mm × 60 mm × 10 mm. This real-time sensor system can be used to monitor the condition of a patient who is having a myocardial infarction and provide real-time feedback for the physicians to use.