Hydrocephalus
Hydrocephalus Heading link
Smart Shunts for Hydrocephalus
Kevin Tangen and Andreas Linninger
Current shunts for the treatment of hydrocephalus have a failure rate above 50% for pediatric patients with associated heath care cost of $1.4B each year in the U.S. To reduce the failure rate of existing shunts, our lab designs new smart shunts with integrated micro-sensors for in-vivo measurement of ventricular volume (VV), intracranial pressure (ICP) and cerebral compliance (CC). Prototypes for animal and human use are designed, fabricated and tested in our lab. Sensor performance is optimized with in-vitro and animal experimentation as well as computer simulations.