# Flexible piezo film intravascular ultrasound arrays on guidewires and catheters

> **NIH NIH R21** · GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY · 2024 · $366,006

## Abstract

Coronary heart disease and peripheral artery disease are the leading causes of atherosclerotic morbidity along
with stroke. More than a million percutaneous coronary and peripheral interventions such as balloon angioplasty
and stent deployment are performed in the US alone every year. A thin guidewire and catheter are used in all of
these procedures while current IVUS imaging probes are infrequently used because of size and complexity. Our
aim is to integrate intravascular ultrasound capability to regular guidewires and catheters so that
interventionalists can use this technique as a routine in-situ imaging and measurement tool before, during and
after interventions without prolonging the procedure time by providing easy to interpret simple metrics such as
lumen size, calcification arc and length, for procedure planning and evaluation. The proposed application aims
to explore and demonstrate the critical steps to build such systems. It uses a novel flexible thin film piezoelectric
material (PiezoPaint) to form conformal linear and interlaced arrays of transducers operating in the 10-30MHz
range on flexible cylindrical structures. It exploits recent advances in application specific integrated circuits
(ASICs) by the Degertekin group for front end electronics that would fit on guidewires and catheters.
Furthermore, an optical encoding scheme is proposed to accurately determine axial distances during pullback
or insertion to implement a simplified method to generate 3D maps of arteries as opposed to additional pullback
hardware or complex angiography and software-based registration. Specifically, we will modify the current
process we use to coat and pattern PiezoPaint on optical fibers to form arrays on guidewires and catheters with
electrical interconnect. Arrays will be fabricated on sections of guidewires and catheter samples with polyimide
substrates including patterned electrodes and wiring. Different array geometries will be evaluated through
simulations and experiments in terms of SNR, measurement resolution and imaging performance to guide
fabrication. To couple the optical encoder to the hemostatis valve and to the guidewire/catheter, a mechanical
design will be developed and implemented. The arrays and ASICs will be electrically connected and the axial
distance encoding system and front end electronics will be synchronized to complete the setup. For experimental
evaluation, 3D phantoms will be designed with guidance from interventional cardiologist collaborators from
Emory University and experiments will be performed assess performance on lumen sizing, echo amplitude
mapping and imaging before moving to experiments on ex-vivo samples. The potential impact of this project is
manifold. Just the demonstration of “ultrasound active” guidewire with simple metrology capability can lead to
applications in coronary and neurovascular interventions. Integration of ultrasound measurement capability on
guidewires and balloon catheters along with simpl...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10790169
- **Project number:** 1R21EB035257-01
- **Recipient organization:** GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
- **Principal Investigator:** F. Levent Degertekin
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $366,006
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-09-20 → 2026-09-19

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10790169

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10790169, Flexible piezo film intravascular ultrasound arrays on guidewires and catheters (1R21EB035257-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10790169. Licensed CC0.

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