Impressive Innovations in Medical Implants

Medical implants save lives, and there are even more opportunities to get better results when hardworking research teams collaborate to make meaningful improvements while overcoming known obstacles. Staying abreast of recent developments allows people to feel confident that implanted medical products are constantly improving. And that’s good news for individuals who need and use them now and those who might in the future. 

Moving Beyond New Pacemakers

Although pacemakers can positively change the lives of people with heart abnormalities who need them, these devices are not always financially accessible to those living in low to middle-income countries. However, researchers compared new pacemakers with reconditioned ones to see if there were significant differences in their performance. 

The study involved almost 300 participants from seven countries, and the comparisons began after people had used the reconditioned models for 90 days. Although the researchers need to do further research to investigate safety and effectiveness, this study showed the reconditioned implants worked as well as the new pacemakers, which could make them more accessible. 

This finding is notable since the usage rate for these medical implants is as low as three per million people or less in the population within some low-income countries, researchers said. However, in high-income nations, the adoption rate is as high as 1,000 per million individuals. 

The group chose 90 days as the endpoint for their investigation, saying that most implant-related infections occur within that time frame. They also only reconditioned pacemakers with at least six years of battery life remaining and passed functionality checks on the electrical components. Those parameters are important because they could guide future efforts to use reconditioned pacemakers. 

However, the researchers recognized that the 90-day period and relatively small sample size were notable limitations. More specifically, a longer investigation with more patients could reveal that the reconditioned devices were more likely than the new ones to fail prematurely. Even so, this study provides hopeful results that indicate these medical implants could become more affordable and sustainable for people to use if there is the option to reuse that pass quality and performance checks. 

Increasing the Success Rate of Medical Implants

One of the challenges of medical implant use is that the body can reject these devices, resulting in numerous complications for patients and their care teams. However, one collaborative research effort resulted in an artificial intelligence-based solution that monitors how individuals’ bodies tolerate the implants and makes changes when necessary. 

The AI device can change its shape or alter the delivery of drugs given to decrease the chances of implant rejection. Those involved with this innovation also took inspiration from soft robotics to design an option that could safely remain inside patients. The AI component monitors what’s happening inside the body, detecting signs of potential implant rejection. The researchers said this device also bypasses scar tissue buildup, meaning it tackles another medical implant challenge. 

This implant improvement is one of the many examples of increased uses of medical monitoring for patients. Other applications help them recover safely at home while decreasing the chances they will need to return to hospitals for urgent care. Some also make hospitals safer, such as reducing falls in patients who try to stand before they have recovered enough to try it. 

These efforts are notable because they aim to catch issues before those instances escalate and become emergencies. Doctors cannot ordinarily get up-to-the-minute information about how well an individual patient’s body tolerates an implant. Instead, they must rely on reports of symptoms — or the lack thereof. However, that is an imperfect approach because they vary widely depending on the type of implant and the site.

Since this implant can deliver drugs as patients need them, it could also improve the lives of people diagnosed with chronic illnesses who require prescribed medication to manage them. 

Reducing the Need to Replace Batteries

Despite the many improvements in medical implants over the years, most still run on batteries. Replacing them has undesirable aspects, such as the financial costs and medical risks of patients needing to have operations requiring general anesthesia and overnight hospital stays. Titanium batteries are among the most widely chosen due to their durability and biocompatibility. However, radio waves cannot pass through the material, so implanted devices with these power sources need separate antennas for wireless power transmission. 

A research team dealt with that challenge by creating an electrostatic material that responded to weak ultrasonic waves. They then expanded that concept by building an implanted neurological stimulator that worked without batteries because it received power from ultrasonic energy. This creation also generated static electricity through friction between its layers. 

When the group tested this option on animal models, they determined that it worked as expected even when subjected to standard ultrasonic energy levels, minimizing strain on the body. This effort also resulted in an unexpected benefit: The battery-free device did not cause the abnormal urination sometimes experienced by people who develop overactive bladders after nerve stimulation treatments. 

Progress such as what those involved with this research achieved will continue to be valuable for all who use medical implants currently or may need them later. Even though many battery replacements occur without incident, many patients and care teams would appreciate it if they happened less often or not at all.

Catering to Growing Children

Children born with heart defects affecting the lower chambers often need invasive procedures soon after birth. One involves installing a shunt to improve blood flow. However, the downside to the typical version of this implantable device is that surgeons must replace it as kids grow. This is a similar problem to the one addressed above, where the batteries for many devices within the body need periodic replacements. However, researchers addressed this issue by making a shunt that gets bigger after light exposure. 

Those who developed this option say children may need up to four surgeries to replace shunts as they grow. However, this method involves putting a light-emitting catheter inside the shunt. The shunt’s interior features a hydrogel coating that changes the shunt’s diameter in response to a blue-light trigger. The team decided blue light’s frequency was ideal because the wavelength has enough energy to cause a reaction, but it’s safe for use in the body. 

People have become increasingly interested in making light interact with medical implants to trigger them. That is largely because they can control which part of the body receives the light, the overall intensity and when the exposure happens. 

Experiments with this shunt also indicated that, once implanted, surgeons could also use the size-changing feature to customize it to each child, making it up to 40% larger when needed. That’s a substantial benefit since no surgery is without risk, and some kids have died during procedures to change their shunts. 

Pushing Medical Implants Forward

Patients began receiving medical implants in the 1950s. Since then, researchers and others interested in health care progress have eagerly explored how to make these devices safer, more effective and increasingly patient-friendly. Achievements like those above are crucial for improving the experiences, outcomes and lives of people who need implantable products to live better.