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Biomedical subjects

W Greatbatch

Publications and source records attributed to W Greatbatch.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1996

Lithium/carbon monofluoride (Li/CFx): a new pacemaker battery.

The reduction in pacemaker size coupled with the addition of more current demanding functions has motivated the development of batteries that can supply higher current densities at useful voltages than the lithium/iodine batteries in use today while retaining the volumetric energy density of that system. The lithium/CFx system offers an attractive alternative for advanced pacemaker systems. The battery can deliver currents in the milliampere range without significant voltage drop. The system is compatible with titanium casing, allowing a 50% reduction in weight over the same size lithium/iodine battery. Cells have been designed and tested in these laboratories and have been shown to be suitable for advanced pacemaker applications.

Biocompatible Materials↗
PubMed1992

The lithium/iodine battery: a historical perspective.

The lithium/iodine-polyvinylpyridine battery, first implanted 20 years ago, has become the power source of choice for the cardiac pacemaker. Over the last 20 years, improvements in cell chemistry, cell design, and modeling of cell performance have been made. Cells today exhibit an energy density over three times as great as cells produced in 1972. Well over 2 million pacemakers have been implanted with this chemistry, and the system has exhibited excellent reliability.

Electric Power Supplies↗
PubMed1991

Blood transfusion and AIDS in the USA.

We have examined data for 3518 cases of transfusion-acquired AIDS (TA-AIDS) onsets as reported to the USA Centers for Disease Control (CDC) through 30 June 1990. We discarded 1077 of these records because of missing or uncertain date of infection. We present here infection and onset data on the remaining 2441 cases in a Rees Plot of year of onset vs. year of infection. This is probably the only class of AIDS patients for whom the date of infection is reasonably ascertainable. Also the large number of cases which we present, by cohorts of year of infection, should be useful for epidemiology and for public health planning purposes.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗
PubMed1991

Origins of the implantable cardiac pacemaker.

The history of the implantable cardiac pacemaker is traced from its conception in 1951, through its development and animal trials in 1958, to its successful implantation in 10 patients in 1960, and on to its commercial realization. From the first 10 patients in 1960, usage has increased to more than 300,000 new pacemakers implanted worldwide in 1989.

Animals↗
PubMed1989

Biomedical engineering in the early U.S. aerospace program.

Much of the bioinstrumentation in the early U.S. aerospace program in the 1950's was undertaken by the U.S. Air Force, first at Randolph Field, TX, and then at Brooks AFB, TX. We document here some of the equipment and some of the experiences encountered by the early experimenters. This period coincided with the introduction of solid-state circuitry into biomedical instrumentation and also strongly influenced research into the electrochemical interface between metal electrodes and the ionic body environment. The author recalls much of his own early work, as well as his recollections of some of the other early researchers.

Biomedical Engineering↗
PubMed1988

Lithium/silver vanadium oxide batteries for implantable defibrillators.

Lithium/silver vanadium oxide (SVO) batteries have been under development in these laboratories since 1980. The system consists of a lithium anode, a liquid organic electrolyte, a cathode composed of conductive additives, a binder, and silver vanadium oxide, a vanadium oxide bronze produced by the thermal decomposition of vanadium oxide and silver nitrate. High rate batteries for implantable cardiac defibrillators based on this chemistry have been under development since 1984. The first Li/SVO defibrillator battery introduced was the Model 8512 with a theoretical capacity of 5.5 Ah and dimensions of 52 mm X 33 mm X 13.5 mm. Later, the Model 8615 was introduced. This cell has a theoretical capacity of 3.0 Ah and dimensions of 52 mm X 21 mm X 13.5 mm. Two other cells which are proprietary have also been introduced. All of the cells can deliver pulses of up to 2.0 amps from a microampere background. The self-discharge of the cells has been shown to be less than 2% per year. In addition, the silver vanadium oxide chemistry provides a discharge curve whose voltage decreases with depth of discharge. This feature can be used as a state-of-charge indicator. The cells have been subjected to rigorous environmental and abuse testing and have been found to have characteristics suitable for implantable applications.

Electric Countershock↗
PubMed1981

Metal electrodes in bioengineering.

The metal electrode is the critical interface between a measuring or stimulating device and the entity to be measured or stimulated. Electricity flows through wires by electron flow. It flows through tissue or fluid by ion flow. To produce an ion from an electron, a chemical reaction is necessary. This reaction occurs within a micron of the metal surface. It is a different reaction for an anode than for a cathode. It usually depends much more strongly on the metal chosen for the electrode than on the fluid or tissue electrolyte in which the electrode is immersed. In all cases, the reaction pair is strongly dependent on the quiescent voltage level of the system and on the magnitude of the voltage excursions around that level. This presentation will attempt to discuss the above points from the viewpoint of the researcher/designer who must use such metal electrodes to make practical measurements or who must connect practical stimulating devices to biophysical systems. The interdisciplinary field we will be discussing is "biophysical electrochemistry", and careful examination of each of these four component fields is necessary.

Animals↗