PhD Mid-term Seminar Series: Non-invasive sensing of pH and lactate in newborns during delivery
CIC nanoGUNE Seminars
- Speaker
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Ion Olaetxea, Nanoengineering Group
- When
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2019/09/23
13:00 - Place
- nanoGUNE seminar room, Tolosa Hiribidea 76, Donostia - San Sebastian
- Add to calendar
-
iCal
Current methods used for monitoring health status and risks of newborns during
delivery do not allow either a proper, efficient or unequivocal control,
resulting in a considerable raise in the awareness at social and medical
level. Besides, in recent years the number of high-risk births has
exponentially grown as a consequence of an increase of the age of mothers or
the existence of a previous cesarean section.
During delivery, fetuses might suffer from oxygen deficiency (hypoxia). If
hypoxia is prolonged, risk of cerebral palsy, hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy
and neonatal mortality are severely increased. Indeed, a lack of oxygen supply
activates the anaerobic metabolism of glucose, giving rise to metabolic
acidosis (higher hydrogen concentration) by means of pyruvate production and a
certain conversion of it to lactate.
The gold standard to identify hypoxia in fetuses is the combination of
Cardiotocography (CTG) and Foetal Blood Sampling (FBS). However, this
technical procedure presents a number of disadvantages: (i) It is invasive and
uncomfortable for the mother; (ii) it is discontinuous; (iii) it has an
important failure rate and an excessively high measurement time is required.
Therefore, the development of a new sensing method integrated into a vaginal
disposable probe that allows to continuously monitor pH and lactate values in
a non-invasive manner represents a clinically highly desirable innovation.