Perioperative complications are an unfortunate reality of undergoing anesthesia, lead to non-optimal post-surgical outcomes, and occur in approximately 10% of all patients undergoing surgery (ca. 5 million surgical patients in 2019). The financial burden of these complications is immense, leading to an additional 200 billion Euros in extra healthcare cost, as well as impacting the health and well-being of millions of patients.
The root cause of these complications is due to inadequate organ perfusion during anesthesia, specifically of the brain. This can lead to irreversible damage of neurons (brain cells) and the neural network. As a consequence, other complications can occur affecting the spinal cord, heart, kidneys and intestines.
However, as of today there is no readily available solution for non-invasive continuous tracking of cerebral blood flow during anesthesia. To address this clinical need we have created the Aurelia technology.
The Aurelia system is a disruptive technology, that allows for the first time ever, the precise, non-invasive tracking of cerebral perfusion and auto-regulation in the perioperative setting.
The tracking of these critical biosignals is obtained via the wearing of a headband with multiple embedded sensors. The collected data is transmitted wirelessly to a platform, which allows for continuous data interpretation and real-time analysis.
From aerospace to bedside: the Aurelia system has been jointly developed between the Charité clinic for anesthesiology and the Berlin based company SectorCon, using aerospace derived technology.
The non-invasive Aurelia system can be placed around the head of the patient during induction of anesthesia in order to „learn“ the individual cerebral perfusion range.
The data captured is wirelessly transmitted to a real-time analysis platform. Through an algorithmic approach cerebral blood flow and auto-regulation are relayed to the anesthesiologist. Therefore impending cerebral hypo- and hyperperfusion can be detected and mitigated before they lead to serious perioperative complications.
The Aurelia system will have the ability to be integrated into the existing monitoring suite. Additionally, the technology can be utilized for numerous future use cases beyond anesthesia, including intensive care medicine, emergency medicine, neurology, and cardiology.
Aurelia is a joint effort of the Department of Anesthesiology, Division of Operative Intensive Care Medicine of Campus Benjamin Franklin Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and SectorCon GmbH.
SectorCon GmbH was established in 1992 and is a certified med tech development and manufacturing company according to ISO 13485. The sensor technology is developed and manufactured by SectorCon in Berlin, Germany.
Aurelia is an innovation project partially funded by the project partners, the BIH Digital Health Accelerator Program and other contributors.
Dieses Projekt wird kofinanziert durch den Europäischen Fonds für regionale Entwicklung [EFRE].
