Single Source-Detector Separation Approach to Calculate Tissue Oxygen Saturation

Summary

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) seeks partners and/or licensees to further develop and commercialize the miniaturized tissue oximeter for implementing the single source-detector separation algorithm in existing devices/systems to collect tissue oxygen saturation.

Description of Technology 

Tissue oxygen saturation (StO2) is an important parameter to assess oxygen delivery and uptake. Hypoxia, a term used to indicate inadequate StO2, is often seen in patients with cardiac problems, respiratory infections or pulmonary diseases. Prolonged hypoxia can damage vital organs such as the brain, lungs, and heart, and can be fatal. Currently available tissue oximeters to monitor StO2 are expensive and cumbersome. 

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) has developed a novel method, which uses a single source-detector separation to calculate StO2. With this technique, a simple tissue oximeter can be made with just a LED and a photodetector, which enables the development of a miniaturized device. As a result, it can be used independently or implemented on existing technologies to measure StO2 without any hardware modifications. It can be applied in wearable devices, implantable medicines or endoscopies to measure tissue oxygenation in different tissues such as muscle, brain, spinal cord, internal organs, fetus and placenta. 

The NICHD seeks partners and/or licensees to further develop and commercialize the miniaturized tissue oximeter for implementing the single source-detector separation algorithm in existing devices/systems to collect tissue oxygen saturation.

Potential Commercial Applications

•    Miniaturized tissue oximeter for implantation or endoscopy
•    Measure tissue oxygen saturation
•    Multilayer tissue oximeter

Competitive Advantages

•    Simpler and more compact as it only requires a single light source such as LED and a single photodetector such as a photodetector to build a tissue oximeter
•    Multilayer measurement
•    Implementation with existing technologies without any hardware modifications