A Study on Packaging of Miniature Fiber Optic Sensors for In-Vivo Blood Pressure Measurements in a Swine Model

Fiber optic sensors are potential techniques for diagnosis of coronary artery disease by measuring the blood pressure difference across a coronary artery stenosis. However, there is no available packaging method to accelerate the commercialization of the device from academic research. Obstacles that hinder the direct use of fiber optic sensors for this biomedical application were analyzed in this paper. Packaging requirements were summarized. A complete packaging solution to a miniature fiber optic sensor was designed accordingly, including fiber pretreatment, coating, tubing, and coil assembly, so that the packaged fiber optic sensor can work effectively and robustly in the coronary artery of a swine model. The successful blood pressure measurements in the aortic arch and the right coronary artery of the swine demonstrated that the reported packaging method provides effective protection and flexible steerability to fiber optic sensors for in-vivo blood pressure measurements.