A smarter device to treat pediatric hydrocephalus and ease parents' worry

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One in every 500 children is born with pediatric hydrocephalus. In these children, the pressure from the fluid can bring on splitting headaches and, if left untreated, can cause brain damage or death.In these patients doctors impact shunts, a type of tube that acts as plumbing to drain excess cerebrospinal fluid from the brain into the patient's stomach, where it is reabsorbed. But sometimes shunts develop problems, and it's difficult to detect hydrocephalus shunt failure before it causes a patient to suffer—which is a potential nightmare for a parent.

              So USC Viterbi School of Engineering professors Ellis Meng and Tuan Hoang created a device that could tip off doctors about problems with the shunts, in real time. Today their startup, Senseer, has patented technologies, developed at USC, for a "smart" shunt system that can sense trouble."Neurosurgeons mentioned that their greatest 'pain' was the diagnosis of hydrocephalus shunt failure, which is inevitable," Hoang said. "Patient care could be greatly improved while minimizing patient suffering if only there was a fast, reliable and affordable method for timely assessment to guide clinical intervention."

                        Besides children, hydrocephalus also may affect adults age 60 and older. This condition is called normal-pressure hydrocephalus. Senseer's multi-sensor technology could be used in both groups."Normal-pressure hydrocephalus is a very underdiagnosed condition currently," Hudson said. "The patient population is expected to keep growing as there's more visibility to it."Baldwin hopes the growing awareness continues to clear up some misdiagnoses of dementia where the patient is actually ailing from normal-pressure hydrocephalus.

                    "These patients who have been misdiagnosed can sometimes barely walk and get a shunt in, and for a decent number of them, they go back to normal," Baldwin said.