Daniel Contreras
Hector Jara
The content of this news item has been machine translated and may contain some inaccuracies with respect to the original content published in Spanish.
The PUCP Medical Devices Line will support three technological innovation projects that have great potential to save lives of patients with COVID-19 and other diseases. The medical prototypes that will receive this support were chosen after winning the Hampikuq competition, organised by the CITEmateriales of the PUCP. Around twenty initiatives from different individuals and companies participated in the competition, seeking to strengthen their project and develop it to obtain the necessary registration for it to be used on real patients.
Director of the Medical Devices line PUCP
This is part of an inter-institutional agreement signed with the Instituto Tecnológico de la Producción (ITP), which will finance the development of the prototypes and whose executive director, Sergio Rodríguez, participated in the ceremony. The selection was made by a jury of experts in clinical engineering, telemedicine and innovation. "The three projects chosen are the ones we consider to have the greatest potential for success," says Dr. Benjamín Castañeda, Director of Medical Devices at our university and coordinator of the Biomedical Engineering Specialisation. "The aim is to save Peruvian lives and bring a better quality of health to places where it was previously unthinkable.
Castañeda, who is also part of the team behind the MASI mechanical ventilators, also stresses the importance of coordinating efforts with the public sector. "The support of the ITP has been fundamental. Between academia and the state, we are going to consolidate this national medical device industry". See below the winning projects.
The prototype of this concentrator, developed by Medical DIACSA, draws air from a room or the environment and filters it to exclusively collect oxygen, which is stored in a tank. It is then released through a tube to be received by the patient. It is capable of delivering a flow rate of 20 Lpm with an average of 93% purity.
Javier Chang, general manager of DIACSA, a graduate and former PUCP professor, explains that the project was conceived during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, when concentrators reached "absolutely exorbitant and purely speculative" prices and there was a shortage of oxygen. "After that, we asked ourselves how we could help in the eventual third wave, and that's how the idea of making oxygen concentrators came about.
It is worth noting that one of these concentrators could be connected directly to a MASI mechanical ventilator and provide emergency support to a patient in an ICU ward.
INLEMED has developed My Oxigen Syste'Mosy', an oxygen therapy system that measures patient saturation to automatically adjust oxygen flow. The prototype, originally conceived as part of a thesis, is designed to be used by patients with respiratory diseases and is capable of providing personalised therapies to its users.
"What we are looking for with 'Mosy' is to reduce the incidence of patients who may need more advanced therapies such as ventilation or high flow," explains Julissa Venancio, who is part of the team behind the device.
This project also germinated in the classrooms of the PUCP, as it was the project with which Yesenia Cieza developed her undergraduate thesis in Electronic Engineering, with which she won first place in the Innovahealth Challenge.
This ultrasound scanner, created by the company Medical Innovation & Technology, has developed a protocol to assess lung damage and is capable of collecting images, information and clinical data to store them in the cloud. In this way, ultrasound results can be reviewed by a radiologist anywhere in Peru or the world. MIT-Tele Ultrasound' aims to facilitate the recognition of lung damage and the diagnosis of cancer and other diseases in patients and expectant mothers in rural or inaccessible areas.
"The idea is that with this technology, the physical presence of a specialist doctor will not be necessary in all cases," explains Gloria Ríos, project manager at Medical Innovation & Technology. "The aim is to reduce the impact of the doctor gap that we have in almost all parts of the country.
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