Advancing Surgical Care

Malleable Surgical Wire for Internal Injuries

When a medic reaches an injured soldier on a battlefield, they are often treating a traumatic injury. However, locating and treating the source of internal bleeding is difficult, which can hinder efforts to stabilize the soldier for transport. Elsewhere, at a VA hospital, a military veteran undergoing surgery is at high risk for stroke or aneurysm. The hospital requires better options to monitor health and provide immediate intervention to prevent permanent brain
damage.

These are just two of the many real-world issues that a team of researchers is addressing. Led by Linda Olafsen, Ph.D., associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, the group uses an interdisciplinary approach that combines infrared sensing and ultrasound imaging within the human body. The goal is a programmable wire that can help medical practitioners find the site of an internal injury. 

“We’re working on devices that can help locate the injury so it can be identified, embolized, controlled and stabilized in order for soldiers to safely make that longer trip to a more comprehensive treatment facility,” Olafsen says.

PROGRAMMABLE, MALLEABLE INTERNAL NAVIGATION

The interdisciplinary approach brings together experts in fields like medicine, materials science, electrical engineering and physics. Seven team members are from Baylor University, including Keith Schubert, Ph.D., professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Jeffrey Olafsen, Ph.D., associate professor of physics in Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences. Collaborators from outside Baylor represent Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Anne Arundel Health System (Annapolis, Maryland), Baylor Scott & White Health Neuroscience Institute and Texas A&M University College of Medicine.

“Here at Baylor, we’re very interested in materials science, including the programmable wire that we’re using to navigate inside the human body,” Linda Olafsen said. “Our engineering and science skills in partnership with medical colleagues’ knowledge help us better design and evaluate products and applications. It’s great that we can engineer this wire and control it to bend on command, but can a doctor actually use it? The interdisciplinary approach allows us to achieve engineering solutions that are useful to entities like the Department of Defense. It’s collaboratively designed to help save lives.”

A crucial part of the research involves surgical wire that can help navigate arteries to find and stop internal bleeding, cauterize wounds, and monitor blood oxygen levels, chemical levels, or tumor growth. The wire is a biosafe product called Nitinol, a nickel-titanium alloy originally developed at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory. While Nitinol has been around for decades, Olafsen’s team has created a new application while scaling down its size.

“The wire, a shape-memory alloy, is malleable,” Olafsen said. “By heating the wire to a certain temperature, we’re able to activate it and remind it of a particular shape. That will cause the wire to bend. So, when you’re navigating through an artery and reach a branch, you apply a current, and that will allow the wire to bend, and then you can turn the current off so that the wire follows the artery. When you reach another bend, you can again apply a current and make the next turn.”
 

MEETING PRACTICAL MEDIC NEEDS

The group is interested in developing materials and biomedical devices that can be operated in safe wavelength ranges for sensitive chemical detection. The ability to sense infrared wavelengths will not only help the diagnosis and treatment of traumatic brain injury and neurological conditions but can also be used to help monitor the heart, liver, spleen, spine and
other areas with enhanced specificity and sensitivity. 

Olafsen explained that the initial endovascular navigation project grew from conversations with physicians at Baylor Scott & White Health in Temple, Texas, who are interested in finding more effective ways to treat aneurysms and neurovascular conditions. The team is attempting to create practical, efficient solutions that work in controlled environments like hospitals and in the field, where conditions are much less predictable. In the future, Olafsen anticipates opportunities to apply this technology to telemedicine and remote surgery.

“We’re very excited to develop robotic or voice-activated systems,” she says. “You could have a remote-controlled system or even very remote observation to enable a knowledgeable surgeon on a different continent to help during treatment, depending on which devices we have attached to the end of our endovascular navigation system.”