Researchers have developed an innovation which will change the way we manage heart disease by enabling the detection of abnormal heart characteristics at an early stage of a forthcoming disease. Engineers have created a 3-D elastic membrane made of a soft, flexible, silicon material that is shaped to match the heart's epicardium. This material can potentially be infused with sensors to detect pH levels and ventricular arrhythmia. "Each heart is a different shape, and current devices are one-size-fits-all and don't at all conform to the geometry of a patient's heart," says Efimov, the Lucy & Stanley Lopata Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering. "With this application, we image the patient's heart through MRI or CT scan, then computationally extract the image to build a 3-D model that we can print on a 3-D printer. We then mold the shape of the membrane that will constitute the base of the device deployed on the surface of the heart."
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