Patients and their physicians will breathe a little easier if a collaboration between Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of Tennessee, and UT Medical Center succeeds. People who have undergone coronary bypass graft surgery frequently experience atrial fibrillation within 48 hours of surgery. This heart rhythm abnormality means longer hospital stays, higher costs, more medications, and increased risk of clot formation and strokes. The goal is a system that forewarns of this cardiac rhythm disorder from surface heart waves. The technology development is led by ORNL's Lee Hively and is based on an R&D 100 Award-winning method that can provide as much as four hours' forewarning of an epileptic seizure. Other potential applications include warning of additional heart rhythm disturbances, including ventricular fibrillation, non-invasive blood glucose monitoring, detection of breathing difficulty and detection of sepsis, a toxic condition resulting from the spread of bacteria or their toxic products from infection. UT Medical Center collaborators include Drs. Tina Dudney, Michael McCormack and Trent Nichols. The UT collaborator is Ethan Farquhar. Funding has been provided primarily through the Laboratory Directed Research and Development and Seed Money programs.
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