An improved artery pressure sensor design that minimally disturbs blood pressure and flow

Abstract

This paper reports the design of an in-vivo pressure sensor that can be implanted around the artery to measure blood pressure. As traditional arterial pressure sensors are completely wrapped around the artery, they reduce blood pressure and mass flow rate inside the artery. Two designs were proposed here to overcome these negative effects. The designs consist of two identically sized piezoelectric sensors placed opposite each other around the artery and a substrate whose endpoints are tied by medical suture to fix the sensors. The piezoelectric sensor allows to detect blood pressure as an electrical signal during the arterial pressure wave. The proposed designs were analyzed by the finite element simulations to evaluate the improvements in blood pressure and mass flow rate compared to previously reported sensor designs. In this respect, it has been proven that the blood pressure and mass flow rate values are improved from 99.88% to 99.97% and from 85.34% to 94.37%, respectively.