Centro tecnológico Cartif

Diagnosis and treatment

The activities of the Biomedical Engineering area are strongly related to the diagnosis and treatment of certain illnesses. We focus fundamentally on two large groups of diseases: Diabetes and all of its complications, and all kinds of cardiac arrhythmia. To this end, we lean on the line of modeling, identification, and control, whose techniques can be used to extract the necessary parameters in order to make a correct diagnosis.

Diabetes

Diabetes mellitus is a condition of high prevalence (4.5% of the population) in today’s society, which demands of our special attention because of the devastating consequences for the afflicted patients. It is the main cause of blindness in Western countries, the first cause of lower-limbs amputation due to non-traumatic etiology, of coronary involvement (acute myocardial infarction), cerebral involvement, terminal renal failure, and polyneuropathy. It is a top-priority public health issue.

The autonomic nervous system neuropathy is one of the most unknown chronic complications of diabetes, because it is the less studied one. This is due to the fact that its clinical manifestations are much subtler and generally appear in the later stages of diabetes, while the peripheral nervous system complications appear earlier. Another factor that makes an early diagnosis difficult is the inexistence of simple, reproducible, non-invasive diagnostic tests that can be available to all doctors. Its effects are, like most of the complications of diabetes, irreversible. Its diagnosis, most of the time, is late and done during advanced stages of the process. This makes patients affected by diabetic neuropathy to have a bad quality of life, bad prognosis and, above all, most studies show that the presence of diabetic neuropathy increases mortality, and micro and macrovascular complications.

Cardiology

The Biomedical Engineering area, within the CARTIF FOUNDATION, intends to contribute to the increase of competitiveness of the international health sector, by establishing the scientific and technological bases for the development of future solutions for the control and treatment of diseases associated with rhythm disorders.

The cardiac arrhythmias are a problem of clinical importance with great significance due to their incidence. They are the cause of 50% of the deaths of cardiac origin in the whole world, and are related to an important deterioration of the quality of life.

Our group directs its research activity toward the development of assistance systems for the study and interpretation of patterns of the electrical behavior of the heart, and the development of procedures for the assistance, improvement, control, and optimization of the current treatments (ablation, implantable devices, medicines).

Our solutions give flexibility and adjustment to the circumstances and the needs of each healthcare system, because we deal with the problems with a strategy of cooperation with healthcare professionals and integration with the available technologies.

Projects

Prodiana