Development of a Korean Type Totally Implantable TAH

한국형 완전이식 인공심장의 개발

Artificial hearts are intended for use in patients with severe forms of heart disease for which no surgical repair is possible. The moving-actuator pump was developed to decrease the overall volume size of the electromechanical total artificial heart (TAH) by eliminating the occupied space of the fixed-actuator in the conventional pusher-plate type pump. In our pump, the actuator moves back and forth for alternative ejections of left and right ventricles. The problem of fitting the TAH to atrial remnants and arterial vessels could also be improved by circular or penduluous mot ion of the actuator instead of linear mot ion of the pusher-plate in the conventional pumps. We have evaluated two types of moving- actuator pump; one is a rolling cylinder type, and the other a pendulum type pump. In the rolling cylinder pump, frictional energy loss exists between the pump housing's guide bars and the actuator's end caps, while the bottom rack under the cylindrical actuator increases the height of the pump, the pump is therefor not implantable inside the small chest of human-sized animals with a body weight of less than 70kg. The new human type pump has a penduluous mot ion actuator to correct the above problems while maintaining the advantage of the moving- actuator's small total volume. The totally implantable TAH is composed of a blood pump, a control system and pheriperal equipments. The blood pump, which is constructed by a moving actuator, a right and left blood sac, and four artificial valves, is implanted in the thoracic. In 1988, the first implantation of the rolling cylinder TAH was performed into a female calf weighing 100kg, and the cal f recovered to the degree of voluntary standing and eat ing and survived to 100 hrs. We then survived two female sheep weighing about 63kg with the new human type TAH for three days.