New disposable biosensor may help physicians determine which patients can safely be fed following surgery

A disposal, plastic listening device that attaches to the abdomen may help doctors definitively determine which post-operative patients should be fed and which should not, an invention that may improve outcomes, decrease healthcare costs and shorten hospital stays, according to a UCLA study.

Some patients who undergo surgery develop a condition called post-operative ileus (POI), a malfunction of the intestines. The condition causes patients to become ill if they eat too soon, which can lengthen an affected patient’s hospital stay by two to three days. Until now, there was no way to monitor for POI other than listening to the belly for short periods with a stethoscope, said study first author Dr. Brennan Spiegel, a professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

If proven successful, the device, a non-invasive acoustic gastrointestinal surveillance biosensor called AbStats, could also be used to help diagnose irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease, in addition to helping obese people learn by the sounds from their gut when they should or shouldn’t eat to help them lose weight.

Spiegel and his team worked with researchers at the UCLA Wireless Health Institute at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science to develop the sensor, which resembles a small plastic cap and has a tiny microphone inside to monitor digestion.

‘We think what we’ve invented is a way to monitor a new vital sign, one to go along with heart rate, blood pressure and respiration. This new vital sign, intestinal rate, could prove to be important in diagnosing and treating patients,’ Spiegel said. ‘The role of wearable sensors in healthcare has reached mainstream consciousness and has the capacity to transform how we monitor and deliver care. Yet, there are very few biosensors that are supported by any peer-reviewed evidence. This study represents peer-reviewed evidence supporting use of a biosensor, a device born and bred out of UCLA multidisciplinary research.’

In this study, the biosensor was used to listen to sounds emanating from the intestines and was connected to a computer that measured the rate of acoustic events