Department of Electrical Engineering and Materials Research Institute, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
Department of Radiology, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA 17033, USA.
Sci Rep. 2016 Jul 28;6:29740. doi: 10.1038/srep29740.
Iron is a trace mineral that plays a vital role in the human body. However, absorbing and accumulating excessive iron in body organs (iron overload) can damage or even destroy an organ. Even after many decades of research, progress on the development of noninvasive and low-cost tissue iron detection methods is very limited. Here we report a recent advance in a room-temperature ultrasensitive biomagnetic susceptometer for quantitative tissue iron detection. The biomagnetic susceptometer exploits recent advances in the magnetoelectric (ME) composite sensors that exhibit an ultrahigh AC magnetic sensitivity under the presence of a strong DC magnetic field. The first order gradiometer based on piezoelectric and magnetostrictive laminate (ME composite) structure shows an equivalent magnetic noise of 0.99 nT/rt Hz at 1 Hz in the presence of a DC magnetic field of 0.1 Tesla and a great common mode noise rejection ability. A prototype magnetoelectric liver susceptometry has been demonstrated with liver phantoms. The results indicate its output signals to be linearly responsive to iron concentrations from normal iron dose (0.05 mg Fe/g liver phantom) to 5 mg Fe/g liver phantom iron overload (100X overdose). The results here open up many innovative possibilities for compact-size, portable, cost-affordable, and room-temperature operated medical systems for quantitative determinations of tissue iron.
铁是一种微量元素，在人体中起着至关重要的作用。然而，吸收和积累过多的铁会对身体器官造成损害，甚至破坏器官（铁过载）。即使经过几十年的研究，开发非侵入性和低成本的组织铁检测方法的进展也非常有限。在这里，我们报告了一种用于定量组织铁检测的室温超高灵敏生物磁强计的最新进展。该生物磁强计利用了磁电（ME）复合材料传感器的最新进展，在存在强直流磁场的情况下，该传感器具有超高的交流磁灵敏度。基于压电和磁致伸缩层压板（ME 复合材料）结构的一阶梯度计在 0.1 特斯拉直流磁场存在下，在 1 赫兹时的等效磁场噪声为 0.99 纳特/rt Hz，具有很强的共模噪声抑制能力。已经演示了一种基于 ME 复合材料的磁强计肝模型，结果表明其输出信号对正常铁剂量（0.05mg Fe/g 肝模型）至 5mg Fe/g 肝模型铁过载（100 倍过量）的铁浓度呈线性响应。这些结果为开发用于定量测定组织铁的紧凑型、便携式、经济实惠且可在室温下操作的医疗系统开辟了许多创新的可能性。
