Development Of Newtype Implantable Gastrointestinal Electrial Stimulation System

Functional Gastrointestinal Disorder (FGID) is the most commondiseases of digestive systems. This kind of disease has a high morbidityand kinds of clinical features such as epigastric pain, meteorism, belching,nausea and vomit. Because the etiology and the mechanism of thisdisease are undefined, there is no dependable and valid clinical treatmentfor patients. And the patients suffer a lot pains and inconvenience in theirdaily life. Researches and experiments have proved that FGIDaccompanied by low index of gastric motility, retardation of gastricemptying and prolongation of intestinal transit. Therefore, improving therecovery of intestinal function is a promising method to treat FGID.Gastrointestinal electrical stimulation (GES) has attracted more and moreresearchers and has been extensively studied. Tremendous researchresults have proved that GES can improve the gastrointestinal motilityand further alleviate the symptoms of FGID. However, the clinicalapplication of GES is restricted by two problems, one of them is that thefinite life span of the battery limits the range of stimulation parameters, the other problem is that there is not highly effective methods to monitorgastrointestinal contraction.This paper is supported by Medicine-Engineering Crossed Fund ofShanghai Jiao Tong University (NO.YG2010MS75). Based on the firstgeneration implantable gastrointestinal electrical stimulation systemdesigned by Medical Precision Engineering&Intelligent System Lab,this paper design the whole new inside stimulator and external controller.The above stimulator and controller, with the transcutaneous energytransmission module and PC software adopted from the first generation’sdesign, constitute the new-type implantable gastrointestinal electricalstimulation system.This research aiming at realization the clinical application of GES byimproving the existed system is valuable both in research and socialbenefits. The main contribution of this paper is summarized as follows：(1) Firstly, introduce the action principle of GES, analyse theclinical omportance and researching status of GES. Through analysis ofthe first generation implantable gastrointestinal electrical stimulationsystem, determine the newtype implantable GES system’s researchdirection.(2) Put forward the whole design of gastrointestinal electricalsimulation system. This whole system includes two parts:insidestimulator and external controller. The design and implement of both the hardware parts and software parts are described deeply detailed in thispaper.(3) Develop the prototype of gastrointestinal electrical stimulationsystem according to the new design, bulid up the two single parts and thejoint debugging of the whole system. During the system testing, themodule of wireless energy transmission, stimulation pulse generation,wireless communication, pressure detection, LCD display, SD datastorage and USB communication are all in a good work condition,verifying the effectiveness of the system designAlthough the basic purpose has been achieved, there are still someproblems in the clinical application of GES. In the end of this paper, theproblems have been summarized and the future research is listed.