Himachal doctor bags US patent for device designed to aid treatment of critically ill patients     

A doctor from Himachal Pradesh has been granted a US patent for developing a 'Blood Analysis System', a device designed to aid real-time monitoring and treatment of critically ill patients.

Bal Chander, presently working as Professor of Pathology at Dr Rajender Prasad Medical College in Kangra district, said the untimely deaths of his teacher and a school friend were the inspiration behind the project, which he completed in one year without any external funding, sponsorship or collaboration.

"The Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office has received an application for a patent for a new and useful invention. The title and description of the invention are enclosed. The requirements of law have been complied with, and it has been determined that a patent on the invention shall be granted under the law," the Acting Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Coke Morgan Stewart, said in the citation.

According to Chander, the European Patent Office has also ratified the different components, working processes and the originality of the invention.

Chander said BAS relates to the concept and design of a new medical device, which is intended for critically ill patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) as well as other patients.

It is a dynamic monitoring and correction system for detecting the levels of various critical data points and suitably calibrating the treatment, tailor-made for the patient's needs, he added.

"The invention will make it possible to measure the levels of dozens of blood molecules and ions continuously and display the results in real time without the patient losing even a single drop of blood," he said.

As of now, the blood samples of patients are taken repeatedly and sent to the laboratory for measuring levels of blood molecules like glucose, lactate, urea, creatinine, bilirubin and ions like sodium and potassium, which takes over an hour to make the results available, which is a long period for any seriously ill patient, Chander said.

"These test results are like snapshots of continuously changing blood pictures, and to understand the complex and ever-changing blood picture using these snapshots is like trying to understand the complete story of a three-hour-long movie through just a few photographs," Chander explained.

Moreover, the BAS is also designed to correct the levels of dozens of blood molecules and ions simultaneously in a very controlled and selective manner without using any drugs, he said.

Unlike dialysis, the invention is designed to remove any of the thousands of molecules circulating in the blood, and this controlled correction can also be monitored simultaneously, he added.

Chander said the untimely deaths of his teacher and a classmate from Sainik School were the inspiration behind the project. While the initial purpose of designing was only to measure the levels of hundreds of blood molecules and ions behind the cause of death, it culminated into a mechanism for both analysis as well as correction, he added.

A native of Shimla and an alumnus of Sainik School Sujanpur Tihra, Chander completed his MBBS and MD (Pathology) from AIIMS, New Delhi.