Toward an Implantable Wireless Cardiac Monitoring Platform Integrated with an FDA‐Approved Cardiovascular Stent

Continuous monitoring of blood pressure from a minimally invasive device in the pulmonary artery can serve as a diagnostic and early warning system for cardiac health. The foremost challenge in such a device is the wireless transfer of data and power from within the blood vessel to an external device while maintaining unrestricted flow through the artery. We present a miniaturized system, which is attached to the outer surface of a regular or drug‐eluting FDA‐approved stent. When expanded, the stent maintains a patent vessel lumen while allowing contact between the electronic sensors and the blood supply. The stent‐based antenna can be used for both wireless telemetry and power transfer for the implanted electronics. Using the stent platform as both a radiating antenna and a structural support allows us to take advantage of an FDA‐approved device whose safety and surgical procedure are well established. The electronics package has been reduced to an area of less than 1 mm 2 , with a thickness under 300 μm. A minimally invasive implantation procedure allows the delivery of the stent‐based implant in nearly any major vessel of the body. This article describes an initial prototype with two stents configured as a single dipole, a 2.4‐GHz transmitter microchip, and a battery, and validates transcutaneous transmission through ex vivo and in vivo porcine studies. The results demonstrate the feasibility of a stent‐based wireless platform for continuous monitoring of blood pressure.