In-vivo Evaluation of Pneumatic Ventricular Assist Device and Durability Improvement

In this paper, we described 23 cases of animal experiment with our pneumatic ventricular assist device and new durability-improvement method. The blood pump consists of blood housing, and back plate made by the injection molding of isoplast, and the diaphragm fabricated by dipping of polyurethane solution onto the aluminum mold. Its volume was 75 $m\ell$ and in-vitro test showed that maximum output was 4.5 $\ell$/min at the 100 mmHg. The adult female sheep with weight of 50 ＋ 10 kg were employed for tile in-vivo experiments and the mean blood flow was sustained at 3.0 1/min. 4 animals survived more than 15 days and the longest survival time was 28 days. In the prior 10 cases, the major causes of death were the tearing of diaphragm at the diaphragm to blood housing junction. By the new mesh and alumina ball milling methods, the durability was enhanced, and its qualitative and quantitative improvement was proved via the in-vivo and in-vitro methods. Animal experiments demonstrated that all the physiologic parameters a ere maintained within the permissible ranges and no thrombus formation was observed through the visual and blood test. The in-vivo experiments demonstrated our pneumatic ventricular assist device to he one month's bridge to transplantation device.

공압식 심실보조장치의 in-vivo 평가 및 내구성 개선