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May 04, 2021 | Tom Ballard

UTRF spotlights technology helping address gastrointestinal impairment

A University of Tennessee (UT) technology is helping address a major problem that affects about a fourth of the patients who have major abdominal surgery.

The affliction, called gastrointestinal impairment (GII), is an acute paralysis of the GI tract beginning two to seven days after the surgery. GII puts patients at risk and leads to readmission rates exceeding 20 percent following surgery.

As described in this spotlight from the latest edition of the newsletter from the UT Research Foundation, a company named Entac Medical is focused on predicting GII with greater accuracy using audio predictive analytics and artificial intelligence. Its product is PrevisEA, a small, self-contained, noninvasive device that attaches to a patient’s abdomen after surgery. It uses proprietary algorithms to detect a highly specific, clinically proven biomarker correlated with the development of GII. When used in the critical few hours following surgery, PrevisEA can predict future development of GII.


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