Recently, Professor Fan Yubo and Associate Professor Li Ruya’s team from the Key Laboratory for Biomechanics and Mechanobiology of Ministry of Education, Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering of Beihang University, has published their latest achievement in the field of flexible wearable sensing in the prestigious journal Nature Communications under the title of “A Flexible Catheter-Based Sensor Array for Upper Airway Soft Tissues Pressure Monitoring.” Professor Fan Yubo and Associate Professor Li Ruya are the co-corresponding authors, and PhD student Shang Jiang and Master’s student Ma Xiaoxia are the co-first authors.

Obstructive sleep apnea is a globally prevalent concern with significant health impacts, especially when coupled with comorbidities. Accurate detection and localization of airway obstructions are crucial for effective diagnosis and treatment, but it remains a challenge for traditional sleep monitoring methods.

In the research, the authors report a catheter-based flexible pressure sensor array that continuously monitors soft tissue pressure in the upper airway and facilitates at the millimeter level. The sensor’s design and versatile 3D femtosecond laser fabrication process enable adaptation to diverse materials and applications. In vitro testing demonstrates high sensitivity (38.1 Ω/mmHg) and excellent stability. The sensor array effectively monitors distributed airway pressure and accurately identifies obstructions in an obstructive sleep apnea animal model. These findings highlight the potential of this catheter-based sensor array for long-term, continuous upper airway pressure monitoring and its prospective applications in other medical devices for pressure measurement in human body cavities.

Fig. 1: A flexible catheter-based sensor array for monitoring pressure on upper airway soft tissues

Fig. 2: Operational principle and characterization of the sensor

Fig. 3: In vivo demonstration of a flexible catheter-based pressure sensing array in the OSA pig model

Fig. 4: The biocompatibility studies of the sensor

This study was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, etc.

Link to the original article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-55088-y

Editor: Lu Meili