An Approach to Improve the Misalignment and Wireless Power Transfer into Biomedical Implants Using Meandered Wearable Loop Antenna

An approach to improve wireless power transfer (WPT) to implantable medical devices using loop antennas is presented. The antenna exhibits strong magnetic field and dense flux line distribution along two orthogonal axes by insetting the port inside the antenna area. This design shows excellent performance against misalignment in the y-direction and higher WPT as compared with a traditional square loop antenna. Two antennas were optimized based on this approach, one wearable and the other implantable. Both antennas work at both the ISM (Industrial, Scientific, and Medical) band of 433 MHz for WPT and the MedRadio (Medical Device Radiocommunications Service) band of 401–406 MHz for communications. To test the WPT for implantable medical devices, a miniaturized rectifier with a size of 10 mm × 5 mm was designed to integrate with the antenna to form an implantable rectenna. The power delivered to a load of 4.7 kΩ can be up to 1150 μW when 230 mW power is transmitted which is still under the safety limit. This design can be used to directly power a pacemaker, a nerve stimulation device, or a glucose measurement system which requires 70 μW, 100 μW, and 48 μW DC power, respectively.</jats:p

Natalizumab plus interferon beta-1a for relapsing multiple sclerosis.

Item does not contain fulltextBACKGROUND: Interferon beta is used to modify the course of relapsing multiple sclerosis. Despite interferon beta therapy, many patients have relapses. Natalizumab, an alpha4 integrin antagonist, appeared to be safe and effective alone and when added to interferon beta-1a in preliminary studies. METHODS: We randomly assigned 1171 patients who, despite interferon beta-1a therapy, had had at least one relapse during the 12-month period before randomization to receive continued interferon beta-1a in combination with 300 mg of natalizumab (589 patients) or placebo (582 patients) intravenously every 4 weeks for up to 116 weeks. The primary end points were the rate of clinical relapse at 1 year and the cumulative probability of disability progression sustained for 12 weeks, as measured by the Expanded Disability Status Scale, at 2 years. RESULTS: Combination therapy resulted in a 24 percent reduction in the relative risk of sustained disability progression (hazard ratio, 0.76; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.61 to 0.96; P=0.02). Kaplan-Meier estimates of the cumulative probability of progression at two years were 23 percent with combination therapy and 29 percent with interferon beta-1a alone. Combination therapy was associated with a lower annualized rate of relapse over a two-year period than was interferon beta-1a alone (0.34 vs. 0.75, P<0.001) and with fewer new or enlarging lesions on T(2)-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (0.9 vs. 5.4, P<0.001). Adverse events associated with combination therapy were anxiety, pharyngitis, sinus congestion, and peripheral edema. Two cases of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, one of which was fatal, were diagnosed in natalizumab-treated patients. CONCLUSIONS: Natalizumab added to interferon beta-1a was significantly more effective than interferon beta-1a alone in patients with relapsing multiple sclerosis. Additional research is needed to elucidate the benefits and risks of this combination treatment. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00030966.)