Electromagnetic resonant sensor for bone health diagnostics

Abstract

With an increasing aging population and the continual need for advancements in rural medicine, a simple way to diagnose degenerative bone diseases that affect approximately 30% of postmenopausal women in the United States and Europe is necessary. Bone fractures in the aging population are generally attributed to a loss in the bone mass density, these fractures often lead to other complications that aging adults may never fully recover from. The electromagnetic resonant bone health sensor skin patch was developed as a point of care technology for use in limited resource settings such as rural medicine or on the International Space Station (ISS) as a diagnostic device for common health parameters. This technology is a simple, robust sensor that, when interrogated by Radio Frequency (RF) waves, may be able to detect changes in bone density over a period of time. Using a vector network analyzer, an RF wave was sent to the sensor causing electric and magnetic fields to formulate about the patch and return frequency responses unique to the substrate it had been applied to. The shift in the sensor frequency response has been studied throughout the growth cycle of a cell culture and the shift has been correlated to cell growth. A biosafety evaluation has also been conducted and provided results of cell viability over 90% for cells cultured for one week. Using each of these studies the parameters of the sensor will be specified and impedance matched with bone. Future work will focus on studying the individual components of the bone matrix to determine the dielectric properties that contribute significantly to the matrix.