University of Auckland (UoA) researchers are adapting wine-industry technology for a device which they said could prevent deaths from surgical complications.
Professor John Windsor, UoA’s Surgical and Translational Research Centre (STaR), said he hopes his team’s device will provide an affordable solution to some of the country’s post-operative deaths (around 0.5 per 100 procedures, within 30 days of surgery, according to Gurney et al, 2020). The technology uses electrodes to measure currents, a technique also used to determine whether wine has gone off and in animal husbandry to look at sperm viability in donors, he explained. “We found in pilot clinical studies that we can accurately measure oxidative stress – a common feature of many diseases – in two minutes at the bedside,” said Prof Windsor.
Since mitochondria facilitate healing and their dysfunction is a feature of post-operative complications, the team’s device will give a measure of mitochondrial activity to provide insights into a patient’s recovery, he said.
The project is one of 13 groups sharing $50 million of funding from Wellcome Leap, to improve the safety of surgery.
