With the ever‐growing requirements in the healthcare sector aimed at personalized diagnostics and treatment, continuous and real‐time monitoring of relevant parameters is gaining significant traction. In many applications, health status monitoring may be carried out by dedicated wearable or implantable sensing devices only within a defined period and followed by sensor removal without additional risks for the patient. At the same time, disposal of the increasing number of conventional portable electronic devices with short life cycles raises serious environmental concerns due to the dangerous accumulation of electronic and chemical waste. An attractive solution to address these complex and contradictory demands is offered by biodegradable sensing devices. Such devices may be able to perform required tests within a programmed period and then disappear by safe resorption in the body or harmless degradation in the environment. This work critically assesses the design and development concepts related to biodegradable and bioresorbable sensors for healthcare applications. Different aspects are comprehensively addressed, from fundamental material properties and sensing principles to application‐tailored designs, fabrication techniques, and device implementations. The emerging approaches spanning the last 5 years are emphasized and a broad insight into the most important challenges and future perspectives of biodegradable sensors in healthcare are provided.

The continuous advances in micro- and nanofabrication technologies have inevitably led to major improvements in field-effect transistor (FET) design and architecture, significantly reducing the component footprint and enabling highly efficient integration into many electronic devices. Combined efforts in the areas of materials science, life sciences, and electronic engineering have unlocked opportunities to create ultrasensitive FET chemo- and biosensor devices that are coupled with more diverse and complex integration requirements in terms of hardware interfacing, reproducible functionality, and handling of analyte samples. Integration of FET chemo- and biosensors remains one of the major bottlenecks in bridging the gap between fundamental research concepts and commercial sensing devices. In this review, we critically discuss different strategies and formats of integration in the context of key requirements, fabrication scalability, and device complexity. The intentions of this review are 1) to provide a practical overview of successful FET sensor integration approaches, 2) to identify crucial challenges and factors limiting the extent of FET sensor integration, and 3) to highlight promising perspectives for future developments of FET sensor integration. We believe that our structured insights will be helpful for scientists and engineers of various profiles focusing on the design and development of FET-based chemo- and biosensor devices.

The number of patients in intensive care units has increased over the past years. Critically ill patients are treated with a real time support of the instruments that offer monitoring of relevant blood parameters. These parameters include blood gases, lactate, and glucose, as well as pH and temperature. Considering the COVID-19 pandemic, continuous management of dynamic deteriorating parameters in patients is more relevant than ever before. This narrative review aims to summarize the currently available literature regarding real-time monitoring of blood parameters in intensive care. Both, invasive and non-invasive methods are described in detail and discussed in terms of general advantages and disadvantages particularly in context of their use in different medical fields but especially in critical care. The objective is to explicate both, well-known and frequently used as well as relatively unknown devices. Furtehrmore, potential future direction in research and development of realtime sensor systems are discussed. Therefore, the discussion section provides a brief description of current developments in biosensing with special emphasis on their technical implementation. In connection with these developments, the authors focus on different electrochemical approaches to invasive and non-invasive measurements in vivo.

Implantable electronic devices for local in vivo monitoring of health parameters are an invaluable supplement to traditional diagnostic tools, offering real-time and personalized assessment. Such devices can be used to deliver different formats of patient-tailored treatment via controlled drug delivery or targeted stimulation. While non-degradable electronic healthcare devices are often challenging to interface with soft tissues and introduce risks associated with surgical extraction procedures, bioresorbable electronics–electronics that is safely decomposed and physiologically absorbed in the human body–undergoes controlled degradation and thus offers a promising approach for temporary monitoring and therapy. The crucial components of temporary bioelectronics are bioresorbable electrodes–electrically conductive interfaces that can be safely resorbed in the body–that should provide seamless integration with surrounding tissues, reliable functionality, and sufficient electromechanical integrity during their operational lifetime. Such electrodes find use as physical and chemical sensing elements, stimulator interfaces, and drug delivery modulators. Advances in materials science have led to significant milestones, such as 1) highly localized electrode-tissue interfacing, 2) monitoring of moving organs and less invasive implantation, and 3) electrochemical sensing with interference and degradation compensation. Additionally, integrated bioresorbable power sources and photo- or acoustically induced modulation have obviated the need for physical interconnects with external components. This mini review provides core insights into the emerging applications of bioresorbable electrodes for sensors, electroceuticals, and multifunctional devices combining sensing with electrotherapy, optogenetic stimulation, and/or drug delivery. We focus on application-specific materials selection and discuss the perspectives for improving the design and development of bioresorbable electronic healthcare devices.