Technology

Cornel Medical’s MicroEye® transforms point-of-care blood sampling from ‘point in time’ to automated continuous monitoring capable of measuring a vast range of potential analytes. The easy-to-use device inserted using common peripheral venous catheters. Delivering dialysate to an external sensor system without the need for blood withdrawal  the MicroEye® provides real-time data to standalone monitors, biosensors or hospital information systems.

How it works

The patented MicroEye® device can be inserted through an 18-gauge peripheral cannula into the patients’ vein or by tunnelling into various tissues. It connects to a hospital syringe pump that perfuses the MicroEye®  with a physiological solution.  This solution stays within the MicroEye® where it is only separated from the patient’s blood/tissue by a thin semi-permeable membrane across which biomarkers diffuse.  The patient’s blood stays where it belongs, inside the patient!  Having recovered the biomarkers in the perfusate, now termed, microdialysate, this flows onto a biosensor or biosensor array for continuous online monitoring.  Alternatively, the dialysate can be collected for offline analysis.

ContinuMon®

The patented ContinuMon® device is a biosensor and reader arrangement.  It can be worn on the wrist and is battery operated using low-energy Bluetooth® to transmit data to a user interface.  Dialysate from the MicroEye® flows over a biosensor that is inserted into the reader unit.  A number of biosensors are already available (for example glucose, lactate, etc.) and others are under development (for example, propofol, antibiotics, immunosuppressants).

NanoEye®

The NanoEye® device is being developed to be as minimally invasive as possible.  It targets the urgent and unmet need for better monitoring of neonates and children where intravenous cannulation and blood withdrawal is to be avoided.

MicroEye® in detail

This sterile microdialysis device has been developed for sampling blood – in the peripheral vascular system by insertion into a standard vascular access cannula, or interstitial fluid – in the subcutaneous, intramuscular and adipose locations through insertion using a tunnelling needle. 

The functional part is a hollow fibre encapsulated within a dual-lumen tube exposed to tissue via ‘windows’ a couple of millimetres proximal to the tip.  

A hollow fibre sits within both lumens and perfusate runs down one-side, returning via the other, in a counter-flow arrangement.  This gives the device tip cross-section an ovoid shape with a long and short diameter of circa 0.7 x 0.5 mm.  

Two variants are available, PME011 with a 10-12mm length exposed fibre and the shorter PME012 with 5mm length fibre exposure.  The latter provides lower analyte recovery at a commensurate flow rate.