IIT-Mandi researchers design device to 'detect' ischemic stroke

Dipender Manta

Mandi, September 29

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mandi, in collaboration with the PGIMER, Chandigarh, claim to have developed a simple, portable and cost-effective device to detect and diagnose strokes caused by impaired blood flow to the brain.

According to medical experts, an ischemic stroke caused by insufficient or interrupted blood supply to part of the brain, which affects one out of 500 Indians every year.

Surveys have shown that around 10 to 15 per cent of all strokes affect people below 40 years of age.

Dr Shubhajit Roy Chowdhury, Associate Professor, IIT-Mandi, said, “The efficient management and treatment of stroke depend upon early identification and diagnosis. Currently, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computer tomography (CT) techniques are considered the gold standard for ischemic stroke detection.

While these are indeed reliable methods, they require considerable infrastructure and high cost, and are inaccessible to many communities in India. There is only one MRI service for every 1 million people in the country.”

“We are working towards finding a low-cost diagnostic technique to precisely detect ischemic stroke at the point of care so that such tests can be used in rural, poor and remote areas. Our team has designed and developed a small wearable device that makes use of Near Infrared Spectroscopy to detect an ischemic stroke. In this device, a near-infrared light emitting diode (NIRS LED) emits light in the range of 650 nm to 950 nm,” he said.

“This light interacts with the coloured components of the blood like haemoglobin and provides information on blood characteristics such as regional oxygen saturation, regional oxygen consumption and regional blood volume index,” he added.

“The IIT-Mandi team performed studies measuring the bio-markers under ischemic conditions at the forearm and at the frontal lobe of the brain. The researchers also validated their detector prototype through experimental occlusion of the forearm and evoked ischemic stroke at the frontal lobe, and found excellent diagnostic potential,” he remarked.

Dalchand Ahirwar, research scholar, IIT-Mandi, said, “A combined matrix of this information reflects the temporal dynamics of blood haemoglobin, which can help in identifying impaired or abnormal blood flow conditions at a local tissue. The biomarkers that we have used to study ischemic conditions are oxygen saturation, regional oxygen consumption and regional blood volume index that could better predict ischemic conditions than other techniques.”