Ventriculoperitoneal Shunts

Project Introduction:

The (Dr. Matthew) Walker Texas Rangers: “Smart Shunt”

We are excited to be working on this project with Dr. Michael Feldman (MD)  and Dr. Michael I. Miga (Ph.D.) for their BME Senior Design.

This project is directed towards ventriculoperitoneal shunts for hydrocephalic children, aged 5 or under. Hyrocephalus is the excessive collection of fluid in the brain and affects 1 in 1000 live births, making it the most frequent procedure in pediatric neurosurgery. The current shunt technology has seen no major improvement in the past 50 years, and has a 50% failure rate within 2 years of insertion. There is no proper way to detect this failure, which leads to severe neurological symptoms of brain compression and swelling before the shunt is removed/replaced.

To address this issue, we are hoping to develop a “Smart Shunt”, which will be able to detect failure before it is clinically apparent. This will be achieved through continuous, remote monitoring of shunt function, represented by the Intracranial Pressure (ICP) of the ventricles in the brain. Not only will the shunt monitor its own function, it will also be able to detect failure and have an inbuilt mechanism of informing the patient and physician of this failure so timely care can be provided and adverse symptoms prevented.

What makes this project so exciting is the clinical significance and huge potential it holds in affecting lives and altering hydrocephalic medicine across the globe. When Dr. Feldman presented the project in class (BME 4950), many students were immediately interested in working on it. 6 teams bid on it in the Needs Assessment submission, making it the highest bid on project. We, The (Dr. Matthew) Walker Texas Rangers, consider ourselves lucky to have been granted this project and look forward to delivering a good design.

Concept Map of Hydrocephalus

Image of the CODMAN CERTAS^® Plus Programmable Valve used for hydrocephalic shunts

Project Objective Statement:

After several iterations, our finalized project objective statement, extracted from the essential needs, is shown below: