Totally Implantable Oxygen Generator (TIOG) for Hypoxia and Hypoxemia

Hypoxia and hypoxemia are the conditions when oxygen is depleted from the cell due to, for example, respiratory failure, cancer, etc. While the current therapy brought reasonable clinical outcomes, its systematic nature of oxygen delivery can be compromised by a significant dropout and side effects. This paper presents a totally implantable oxygen generator (TIOG) for localized, highly controllable, real-time, and targeted oxygen delivery.

The TIOG system, an ultra-low power implantable wireless platform, is built using off-the-shelf components. The TIOG can be remotely operated to enable a tailored oxygen delivery based on electrolysis with a precisely controlled electrical signal (i.e., current level, frequency, and duty cycle).

The in vitro experiments demonstrate that the TIOG could deliver oxygen with a rate of 9.27 ± 1.9 µmol/L/min with the pulsed electrical current (800 µA, 600 µs pulse or 6% duty cycle with 10 ms period). The system could also suppress chlorine generation under the safety guideline (5 mg/L). Operating at 433 MHz ISM band, the TIOG could be wirelessly controlled from up to 600 cm distance with a 0%-bit error rate (BER) and 0%-packet error rate (PER). A single charge of the battery could operate the system for up to 3.3 hr, which can be wirelessly recharged for long-term operation.

The longevity of the TIOG system enables ambulatory oxygen therapy in a much longer-term than current practice.