Efficacy of ion-selective probes in early epicardialin vivodetection of myocardial ischemia

Nanomedicine for the prevention, treatment and imaging of atherosclerosis

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in developed countries, with an increasing prevalence due to an aging population. The pathology underpinning CVD is atherosclerosis, a chronic inflammatory state involving the arterial wall. Accumulation of low density lipoprotein (LDL) laden macrophages in the arterial wall and their subsequent transformation into foam cells lead to atherosclerotic plaque formation. Progression of atherosclerotic lesions may gradually lead to plaque related complications and clinically manifest as acute vascular syndromes including acute myocardial or cerebral ischemia. Nanotechnology offers emerging therapeutic strategies, which may have advantage overclassical treatments for atherosclerosis. In this review, we present the potential applications of nanotechnology toward prevention, identification and treatment of atherosclerosis.

Emerging applications of nanomedicine for the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases

Nanomedicine is an emerging field that utilizes nanotechnology concepts for advanced therapy and diagnostics. This convergent discipline merges research areas such as chemistry, biology, physics, mathematics and engineering. It therefore bridges the gap between molecular and cellular interactions, and has the potential to revolutionize medicine. This review presents recent developments in nanomedicine research poised to have an important impact on the treatment of cardiovascular disease. This will occur through improvement of the diagnosis and therapy of cardiovascular disorders as atherosclerosis, restenosis and myocardial infarction. Specifically, we discuss the use of nanoparticles for molecular imaging and advanced therapeutics, specially designed drug eluting stents and in vivo/ex vivo early detection techniques.

Potassium Ion Sensing With Nanowire Electrodes on a Flexible Substrate for Early Detection of Myocardial Ischemia

An increase in extracellular potassium levels is a physiological sign of myocardial ischemia and timely sensing with an implantable potassium sensing biosensor could play a significant role in detecting and expediting care. In this paper, unique fabrication techniques for both planar and nanowire structured gold microelectrodes are described along with data showing the enhanced charge transfer capabilities of the nanowire design. Optimization is required for the electrodeposition of polypyrrole onto gold nanowires and processing details along with characterization data are provided for both the polypyrrole layer and ion selective membrane. Cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy results show that the polypyrrole coated gold nanowire electrodes provide stable charge transfer, showing the potential as a potassium sensing device for the early detection of myocardial ischemia applications.