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PD0RDD > NASA 19.11.98 01:58l 120 Lines 5353 Bytes #-9804 (0) @ WW
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From: PD0RDD@PI8WNO.#UTR.NLD.EU
To : NASA@WW
Renee Juhans
Headquarters, Washington, DC November 18, 1998
(Phone: 202/358-1712)
John Bluck
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
(Phone: 650/604-5026)
Janet Basu
University of California, San Francisco, News Services
(Phone: 415/476-2557)
RELEASE: 98-208
MINIATURIZED TRANSMITTER TO BE USED IN EFFORTS TO SAVE BABIES
Early next year, a NASA-developed "pill transmitter" is
expected to begin monitoring mothers and their babies
following corrective fetal surgery. The "pill" will monitor
body temperature, pressure and other vital signs in the womb,
radioing this critical information to physicians.
NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, is
developing the pill, which is about one-third-of-an-inch
across and one-and-one-third-inches long, in cooperation with
the Fetal Treatment Center at the University of California,
San Francisco. Later, an even smaller pill will be developed
that can be swallowed by astronauts so that NASA can track
their vital signs during space travel.
"Nearly every time doctors operate on a fetus, the
mother will later undergo pre-term labor that must be
monitored," said Dr. Carsten Mundt, an electrical engineer on
the Sensors 2000 team at Ames. "Pre-term labor is a serious
problem that is difficult to predict and monitor with
conventional equipment, and often leads to the death of the
baby."
"But if you implant our pill, you can measure pressure
changes in the uterus that result from contractions," Mundt
said. "When doctors are able to monitor the magnitude and
frequency of contractions, the physicians can identify the
onset of pre-term labor early enough to prevent it from
becoming life threatening to the fetus."
Earlier, pediatric surgeons at the Fetal Treatment
Center pioneered a cesarean surgical approach to treat
fetuses suffering from various birth defects including
congenital diaphragmatic hernia. In this condition, a hole
in the baby's diaphragm lets internal organs shift from
inside the abdomen into the chest cavity, leaving
insufficient room for lung development. Sixty to 75 percent
of babies born with this condition perish. During some of
these earlier surgeries, physicians implanted larger sensor-
transmitters to monitor mothers and their fetuses.
Recently, Fetal Treatment Center surgeons changed their
technique from cesarean to a less-intrusive endoscopic method
during which they make small incisions and insert tube-like
devices through the mother's abdominal wall.
Normally, an endoscope is used to see into the interior
of a body or hollow organ. Endoscopic instruments are now
also used more frequently in surgeries requiring smaller
incisions.
"This minimally invasive method represents the future of
fetal surgery," said Michael Harrison, M.D., founding
director of the Fetal Treatment Center, who in 1981 performed
the world's first corrective surgery on a fetus before birth.
"Because there are no commercially available sensor-
transmitters small enough to fit through the tubes used in
the new endoscopic surgery technique, scientists and
engineers on our team developed the pill-shaped device so
that it can pass through the tubes," said Ames team member
Mike Skidmore. "Our first pill-shaped device can transmit
temperatures as well as the pressure of uterine
contractions."
Ames scientists are testing a prototype version of
another pill that can measure and transmit pH, or acidity in
the fetus, according to Dr. Chris Somps, a scientist on the
Sensors 2000 team. "Plans also call for even smaller pills
that will measure the electrical activity of the fetal
heart," he said. "These pills will transmit fetal heart
data, as well as measurements of the baby's body chemicals
including ionic calcium, carbon dioxide and glucose."
"We would also like to use this technology to study what
happens to astronauts during space travel," said Skidmore.
"Not only could they swallow the smaller pill transmitters we
plan to develop, but we have a conceptual design of small,
flat transmitters that can be taped to the body like plastic
bandages."
"There are many possible medical uses for this
technology; pills could monitor intestinal pressure changes,
or stomach acidity in ulcer patients," Mundt said. "The
acid-base balance in the body is a basic measure of health."
-end-
.
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