Polymer-Based Cardiovascular Shear Stress Sensors

This paper describes a polymer-based cardiovascular shear stress sensor built on catheter for atherosis diagnosis. This flexible sensor detects small temperature perturbation as fluid past the sensing elements leading to changes in the resistance, from which shear stress is inferred. MicroElectroMechanical System (MEMS) surface manufacture technology is utilized for fabrication of the devices with biocompatible materials, such as parylene C, Titanium (Ti) and Platinum (Pt). The temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) of the sensor is 0.11%/°C. When a catheter-based sensor is positioned near the wall of the rabbit aorta, our 3-D computational fluid dynamic model demonstrates that flow disturbance is negligible under steady state in a straight segment. The sensor has been packaged with a catheter and will be deployed into the aorta of NZW rabbits for realtime shear stress measurement.