Pressure sensor element and method to measure contact stress

Abstract

A biological implantable pressure sensor element comprises a fixed volume pouch formed by a sealed, flexible, impermeable membrane comprising therewithin a gel mass contained in a gel volume, said gel being hydrated with an aqueous solution comprising an agent having at least a first and a second NMR-detectable form, the proportion of the first to the second form of the agent in the gel volume being determined by their electrolytic interaction with the gel, whereby when an external pressure is applied to the sensor element a d (chemical shift)/d(.sigma./K) greater than 0.0001 ppm is attained, wherein .sigma. is the external pressure and K is the modulus of the gel. A kit contains sterile, individually wrapped sensor elements. A method of measuring in vivo contact stress applied to an implanted pressure sensor element, comprises implanting the pressure sensor of the invention into a situs of a subject in need of such measurement, non-invasively subjecting the subject situs to a nuclear magnetic resonance source effective to detect said NMR-detectible agent, obtaining the NMR spectrum of said agent, obtaining the chemical shifts from the spectrum, repeating steps (b) to (d) at least once at a desired time interval, comparing the chemical shifts obtained in step (d) at different time intervals, and calculating the contact stress applied to said sensor element at a desired time from a correlation of observed chemical shifts for normalized stresses (.sigma./K) for the sensor element. A method of measuring in vitro contact stress applied to a pressure sensor element, comprises placing the stress sensor element of the invention in contact with a biological tissue in culture, non-invasively subjecting the biological tissue to a nuclear magnetic resonance source effective to detect said NMR-detectible agent, obtaining the NMR spectrum of said agent, obtaining the chemical shifts from the spectrum, repeating steps (b) to (d) at least once at a desired time interval, comparing the chemical shifts obtained in step (d) at different time intervals, and calculating the contact stress applied to said sensor element of a desired time from a correlation of observed chemical shifts to normalized stresses (.pi./K) for the sensor element.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.