Senior design capstone project for UCSD Bioengineering by Lauren Midyett and Minghua Ong
With the mentorship of Melissa Ledgerwood-Lee, MAE Department, Materials Science PHD Candidate under the supervision of Dr. Mittal & Dr. Sah
Esophageal motility disorders adversely impact the everyday lives of many patients, making it painful or nearly impossible to eat or swallow normally. In the United States, 4% (1 in 25) of adults across all ages and 22% of elderly adults (ages 50+) are affected by swallowing problems each year [1,3]. While these side effects impede daily life, a relative minority seek treatment— in part due to the limited diagnostic tools, analysis, and treatments currently available. Esophageal manometry is the most informative procedure to assist clinicians in identifying and developing treatment plans for motility disorders. While the technology associated with esophageal manometry procedures has improved greatly, current state-of-the-art technologies still fall short in (i) accounting for patient comfort and (ii) providing the high-resolution impedance readings required to easily differentiate between similar disorders. Our project aims to redesign the catheters used in esophageal manometry, emphasizing bioimpedance data collection by decreasing the sensor spacing from 2cm to 1cm; this enables both greater resolution and more impedance measurements to be collected. The construction of a fully functioning impedance catheter is unrealistic for our course timeframe and budget; therefore, our goal is to have an abbreviated catheter prototype, consisting of at least 9 impedance electrodes with a complementing software program for data analysis.
To successfully construct an abbreviated catheter prototype with 1cm electrode spacing.
To create a software interface that calculates, stores and displays impedance measurements of an artificial esophagus.
Create an equation to support our catheter system and calculate the cross sectional area of an artificial esophagus.
Contact our team to learn more! See Team page.
Page by Lauren