title: A fiberoptic sensor system for cardiac monitoring and electrotherapy.
abstract: Commercially available cardiac pacemakers and implantable cardioverters/defibrillators (ICD) predominantly use the intracardiac derived electrocardiogram (ECG) for detection of arrhythmias. To achieve an automatic control of the heart frequency in accordance with cardiovascular strain and an improved detection of life-threatening arrhythmias, it is desirable to monitor the heart by an input signal correlated with the hemodynamic state. One possible approach to derive such a signal, is to measure the inotropy (mechanical contraction strength of the heart muscle). For this purpose an optoelectronic measurement system has been designed. The fundamental function of the system has been shown in earlier investigations using an isolated beating pig heart. In this paper further results showing the correlation of the fiberoptic sensor signal with the left ventricular stroke volume are presented. To make the system useful for implantable devices, further improvements with regard to power consumption and signal quality were achieved.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Medical Faculty, University Center of Medical Engineering (UZMT), Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany. mueller@biomed.ruhr-uni-bochum.de
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kloppe
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mügge
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Werner
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001145:Arrhythmias, Cardiac / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy; D017147:Defibrillators, Implantable; D004867:Equipment Design; D005246:Feedback / Q000502:physiology; D005336:Fiber Optic Technology / Q000295:instrumentation*; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D009200:Myocardial Contraction / Q000502:physiology; D010138:Pacemaker, Artificial; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation*; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013318:Stroke Volume / Q000502:physiology; D013552:Swine; D016277:Ventricular Function, Left / Q000502:physiology