Alexander Vezeridis
Stanford University, CA·Biomedical Engineering
Catheter embolization is a procedure in which a doctor threads a thin tube through the blood vessels and deliberately blocks a target artery, used to treat liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma), uterine fibroids, kidney cancer, and life-threatening lung bleeding in cystic fibrosis. Deciding when the artery is blocked enough is currently a judgment call: the operator takes intermittent X-ray pictures and visually estimates whether blood is still flowing.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Medicine & Clinical Research
Engineering
- Topics
catheter embolization
electrochemical impedance spectroscopy
microcatheter
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Miniaturize catheter-based electrochemical impedance spectroscopy sensing technology onto microcatheters, the small-caliber catheters used for embolization that can track through small blood vessels.
- Evaluate the feasibility of new sensor-catheter methods for continuous, rather than intermittent, determination of blood flow within an artery being embolized.
- Test whether real-time impedance-based flow sensing can provide a quantitative embolization endpoint, replacing the operator-dependent visual assessment of flow on intermittent X-ray angiography.
More about the research
That makes the endpoint operator-dependent and non-quantitative, so patients can end up undertreated or overtreated. This project aims to put a flow sensor on the catheter itself so the endpoint can be measured rather than eyeballed.
Why it matters
Patients undergoing embolization for liver cancer, uterine fibroids, kidney cancer, or massive bleeding in cystic fibrosis currently depend on a subjective, X-ray-based judgment of when the artery is adequately blocked. A catheter that measures blood flow directly could make the treatment endpoint quantitative, reduce under- and overtreatment, and cut radiation exposure, with potential use in any interventional radiology or cardiology procedure that needs flow measurement inside a vessel.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Timothy Ziemlewicz
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Biomedical Engineering
Compare strategies for limiting breathing-related liver motion during histotripsy, testing high-frequency jet ventilation against cone-beam CT-based motion modeling that adjusts the treatment prescription.
Nitesh Katta
Baylor College of Medicine, TX·Biomedical Engineering·Early-career
Design and manufacture sub-millimeter metasurface optics — surfaces patterned below the wavelength of light to shape a beam — that fit within an optical guidewire for coronary procedures.
Ryan Sochol
University of Maryland, MD·Biomedical Engineering
Create machine learning-based design tools that predict how soft robotic microcatheter tips will bend and perform, to guide the design of steerable catheters.
The school
Stanford University: 87 labs on PI Pages, $1.6B a year on research, 739 research doctorates a year.
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