Cardiovascular events occurring in the bloodstream are responsible for about 40% of human deaths in developed countries. Motivated by this fact, we present a new global network architecture for a system for the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular events, focusing on problems related to pulmonary artery occlusion, i.e., situations of artery blockage by a blood clot. The proposed system is based on bio-sensors for detection of artery blockage and bio-actuators for releasing appropriate medicines, both types of devices being implanted in pulmonary arteries. The system can be used by a person leading an active life and provides bidirectional communication with medical personnel via nano-nodes circulating in the bloodstream constituting an in-body area network. We derive an analytical model for calculating the required number of nano-nodes to detect artery blockage and the probability of activating a bio-actuator. We also analyze the performance of the body area component of the system in terms of path loss and of wireless links budget. Results show that the system can diagnose a blocked artery in about 3 h and that after another 3-h medicines can be released in the exact spot of the artery occlusion, while with current medical practices the average time for diagnosis varies between 5 and 9 days.

This article presents an overview of future truly personal communications, ranging from networking inside the human body to the exchange of data with external wireless devices in the surrounding environment. At the nano- and micro-scales, communications can be realized with the aid of molecular mechanisms, Förster resonance energy transfer phenomenon, electromagnetic or ultrasound waves. At a larger scale, in the domain of Body Area Networks, a wide range of communication mechanisms is available, including smart-textiles, inductive- and body-couplings, ultrasounds, optical and wireless radio transmissions, a number of mature technologies existing already. The main goal of this article is to identify the potential mechanisms that can be exploited to provide interfaces in between nano- and micro-scale systems and Body Area Networks. These interfaces have to bridge the existing gap between the two worlds, in order to allow for truly personal communication systems to become a reality. The extraordinary applications of such systems are also discussed, as they are strong drivers of the research in this area.