A fiberoptic silicon pressure microsensor for measurements in coronary arteries

The authors have developed a pressure sensor in which the sensing element is only about 80 mu m wide and 1200 mu m in length, and which can therefore be mounted close to the tip of a guide wire having the desired bending flexibility and torsion stiffness. Signal transmission is provided by a thin optical fiber integrated into the guide wire structure. The sensor has been tested both in vitro and in vivo with satisfactory results. The sensor has also been used in humans in approximately one hundred cases, most of them in combination with balloon angioplasty.<
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