Make Mine Bioresorbable

By KIM BELLARD I learned a new word this week: bioresorbable.  It means pretty much what you might infer — materials that can be broken down and absorbed into the body, i.e., biodegradable.  It is not, as it turns out, a new concept for health care – physicians have been using bioresorbable stitches and even stents for several years.  But there are some new developments that further illustrate the potential of bioresorbable materials.  It’s enough to make Green New Deal supporters smile. Bioresorbable stents and stitches are all well and good – who wants to be stuck with them or, worse yet, to need them removed? – but they are essentially passive tools.  Not so with pacemakers, which have to monitor and respond.  Medicine has made great progress in making pacemakers ever smaller and longer lasting, but now we have a bioresorabable pacemaker.  Researchers from Northwestern University and The George Washington University just published their success with “fully implantable and bioresorbable cardiac pacemakers without leads or batteries.”  What their title might lack in pithy is more than offset by the scope of what they’ve done.  Fully implantable!  No leads!  No batteries!  And bioresorbable!  Most pacemakers are, of course, designed to be permanent, but there are situations where they are implanted on a temporary basis, such as after a heart attack or drug overdose.  Dr. R...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Health Tech Health Technology bioresorbable Biotech Kim Bellard Source Type: blogs