10/12/2025
It was July 29th, 2022, around 1:45 p.m., and outside the heat was scorching.
I had just come out of the operating room: I had undergone my first surgery for the creation of an arteriovenous fistula.
In the following days, during my recovery, an idea began to take shape — an intuition born from my measurement-oriented mindset: the idea of developing an innovative monitoring system, capable of reducing follow-up visits and enabling a continuous and non-invasive follow-up of the fistula.
As every dialysis patient knows, its proper functioning is vital, yet I realized how little research had been done on the subject — almost nothing in the literature, and practically no dedicated devices, apart from the use of Doppler ultrasound.
From that awareness arose the desire to turn a personal experience into a concrete project: that’s how the PRIN “SMART-FAV” project was born — dedicated to the development of intelligent solutions for the monitoring of the arteriovenous fistula, based on advanced sensor technologies, IoT systems, and intelligent analysis of physiological signals.
The project has grown thanks to an extraordinary team, combining clinical and engineering expertise from the University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, the University of Naples Federico II, the University of Salerno (UNISA), NephroCare, and the “Moscati” Hospital of Avellino.
Today, three years later, the time has come.
What started in a hospital room has become recognized and published scientific research in the journal Sensors International (Elsevier), with a CiteScore of 24.6, ranked Q1 in Instrumentation and Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and with an acceptance rate below 10%.
🔗 https://www.sciencedirect.com:5037/science/article/pii/S2666351125000312
A milestone that would not have been possible without all those who believed in the idea, who made it real with passion, sacrifice, and trust. To each of them goes my deepest gratitude.
From misfortune came opportunity, and from a moment of fragility emerged research that looks to the future, capable of transforming pain into knowledge and measurement into possibility.
Because sometimes, it is precisely from the most difficult experiences that the brightest ideas are born.
