American researchers from the University of Arizona have developed a new technique to monitor the health and growth of bones inside the body. With bone injuries accounting for 180 million cases worldwide yearly, this technology could be very useful for monitoring osteoporosis and bone fracture outcomes.
The process developed uses NFT (near field communication) technology, which allows for remote data exchange, like contactless bank cards for example.
David Margolis, assistant professor of orthopedic surgery at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson and an orthopedic surgeon at Banner University Medical Center Tucson (BUMCT), explains that the electronic device they developed, about the thickness of a sheet of paper and the size of an index finger joint, attaches permanently to the bones and will transmit information about the health of the bone.
Using a battery to operate it was not an option because a system of a certain thickness carries risks of irritation or rejection and displacement in the body since the bones on which the device is attached continue to grow throughout life. The problem of thickness has been solved with the NFT technology, which can operate without a battery, and therefore without additional thickness, to better adhere to the bone wall.
The device is then fixed with an adhesive that contains calcium particles to allow the bone to grow on the device. This innovation, whose primary objective is to monitor the healing of cracked or broken bones, has so far been successfully tested on animals and the human testing phase is expected to take place soon.
Comment here