Explore more about: Cardiovascular Disease

While pacemakers have treated many patients with heart rhythm disorders, their bulky design and use of wires limits their usefulness and poses a risk of heart damage or infection. Now, researchers have cut the cords, shrunk the size, and expanded the capabilities of current designs.

Researchers at The Pennsylvania State University have developed a new synergistic approach to revascularization that combines a new framework made from granular hydrogels with micropuncture, a surgical technique. Their preclinical method could rapidly grow organized blood vessels in live rats.

The qualities of flowing blood, or hemodynamics, hold important insights into vascular diseases, but technological limitations have largely kept measurements of these properties out of reach in the clinic. Now, there may be a potential solution on the horizon.

A beating heart makes for a formidable surgical arena, but a new robotic catheter could someday equip surgeons to operate in the cardiac environment with greater ease.

UMass Chan Medical School and UMass Lowell have received $8.9 million from the National Institutes of Health in support for their development of home care technology. Source: Worcester Business Journal

This fully wireless ultrasound patch, which can capture detailed medical information and wirelessly transmit the data to a smart device, could represent a major step forward in at-home health care technology.

After years of research, an NIH-funded team has developed a wearable cardiac ultrasound imager that can non-invasively capture real-time images of the human heart. The prototype patch, which is about the size of a postage stamp, can be worn during exercise, providing valuable cardiac information when the heart is under stress.

Using state-of-the-art imaging technology, NIH-funded researchers have found the secret behind the glassfrog’s ability to become transparent, an effective form of camouflage. Future research may provide insights into disorders related to blood clotting or stroke in humans.

NIBIB-funded researchers are fine-tuning a wearable, cuffless blood pressure monitor. Made of graphene, one of the thinnest materials in the world, the device is worn on the underside of the wrist and can measure blood pressure with comparable accuracy to a standard blood pressure cuff.

Understanding the physics of clot contraction could potentially lead to new ways to treat bleeding problems and clotting problems.