Indian Firm Uses Spacesuit Tech to Develop World's Lightest Radiation Gear for Surgeons

Interventional surgeons, and other healthcare workers while performing image-guided surgeries, are exposed to radiation for over eight hours, which often puts their health at risk. An Indian medical technology company on Wednesday launched one-of-a-kind radiation protective gear, which absorbs heat and provides comfort, for such surgeons and supporting healthcare professionals.

Known as SpaceD Radiation protection aprons, these wearables use smart fabric with Outlast® technology that was initially developed for NASA. Satyaki Banerjee, CEO, Medical Imaging, Trivitron Healthcare, told Sputnik that this technology uses phase change materials (PCM) that absorb, store, and emit heat for optimal thermal comfort.

According to manufacturer Trivitron Healthcare, lightweight aprons can regulate a surgeon's body temperature during lengthy stressful procedures.

Banerjee also said that that the apron is the world's lightest anti-radiation apparel and that it cuts down the effect of overexposure exponentially.

"Generally, radiation protective gears are used by radio technicians when performing an X-ray or interventional surgeons whenever they perform surgeries like angiography. Depending on the surgeries they perform in a day, they would wear these aprons for over eight-nine hours. Currently, available gears are extremely heavy as they have lead-equivalent layers. Our objective was to make these wearables as light as possible", Satyaki Banerjee told Sputnik.

The company also emphasised that the anti-radiation gear can protect medics from overexposure to radiation, which leads to adverse health effects, including burns, radiation sickness, permanent damage to the skin and bone-marrow, genetic mutation, and cancer.

"First, we developed a material called zero-lead air, and it is a micro-particle material. Instead of using lead, we used antimony and bismuth as lighter metals block radiation the same way lead does. We came across a technology that was initially developed for astronauts at NASA. The moment temperature rises, it absorbs the heat and gives a cooling effect as we used Outlast technology in the inner layer. Again, when the temperature becomes too cold, it changes and gives heating effect", Banerjee explained.