Delivery of Aerosol Drugs Through Continuous Positive Airway Pressure

Design Award

Tong Biomedical Design Award Honorable Mention

Project Overview

In order to treat obstructive sleep apnea, Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) devices have been developed to deliver air under constant positive pressure to the nasal passages during sleep. The goal of this project is to design and fabricate a drug nebulizer to work in line with a CPAP machine to help sleep apnea and asthma patients. It must also function within a hospital ventilator circuit. It must be adjustable to main unit airflow and programmable for different times and durations of administration during an 8-hour sleep cycle. The drugs that the nebulizer must aerosolize will be bronchodilators, such as Albuterol Sulfate.

Project Status:

The semester is over, and we received an honorable mention for our design among the BME senior class. Our ultrasonic nebulizer runs with a two-fold increase in efficiency over conventional ultrasonic nebulizers. The program works very well, but adjustments need to be made to consistently predict breathing threshold. Next we will take the necessary steps to submit an invention disclosure, send in a paper to a scientific journal, secure a patent, and finally to obtain approval to conduct clinical trials.