In the US alone, over 500,000 heart surgeries require a regulated drop of 5-20°C in body core temperature to provide organ protection during hypothermic circulatory arrest (HCA), especially the brain. Likewise, neuroprotection in ~300,000 traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and ~300,000 sudden cardiac arrest patients each year require targeted temperature management. Surrogate temperatures are used in place of direct brain measurements, resulting in notable complications from unexpected hyperthermia, such as prolonged recovery and hospitalisation, ischemic neuronal injury/death, and cognitive dysfunction.

To radically improve neurological outcome in temperature-based intensive and surgical procedures, we developed a unique passive sensing technology that safely, non-invasively and accurately tracks direct brain temperature. As done in astronomy to quantify distant stars’ inner core temperature, we demonstrated that our unique Brain Temperature Monitor (BTM) passively collects thermal radiation from multiple microwave bands from different target to reconstruct inner brain temperature. We recently optimised the initial prototype into a low-cost, ultra-sensitive wearable patch that can track brain temperature for several days and prove its value in detecting harmful cerebral hyperthermia in TBI and HCA patients. We will show phantom and clinical data on TBI and HCA patients and outline some of the potential future application of this groundbreaking technology.