[Artificial heart--turbo type blood pump for long-term use].

Shortage of donor heart for transplantation necessitates long-term artificial assist heart. Turbo-pump is smaller, simpler and cheaper than the pulsatile displacement type pump, but the turbo-pump has defect of thrombus formation at the shaft seal. Our centrifugal pump with magnetically suspended impellers overcomes this defect and is ready for clinical trials now. The structures and functions are described and are compared with the other newly-developed pump of the same kinds with us. And also the pumps of centrifugal type and axial-type, of which impellers are supported by pivots, are reviewed briefly from the stand point for long-term use. Other pumps are referred too: pumps with hydrodynamic bearing and a pump with the shaft seal which is washed and cooled by saline solution.

Autosynchronized systolic unloading during left ventricular assist with a centrifugal pump.

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to investigate how the inflow cannulation site of the left ventricular assist system with a centrifugal pump would influence cardiac function on failing heart models. METHODS: In 10 sheep, a left ventricular assist system was instituted by an outflow cannula in the descending aorta, two inflow cannulas in the left atrium and the left ventricle, and connecting those cannulas to a magnetically suspended centrifugal pump. A conductance catheter and a tipped micromanometer for monitoring the pressure-volume loop were also inserted into the left ventricle. Myocardial oxygen consumption was directly measured. Heart failure was induced by injection of microspheres into the left main coronary artery. The assist rate was varied from 0% to 100% at each inflow cannulation site. RESULTS: The pump flow with left ventricular cannulation increased during the systolic phase and decreased during the diastolic phase, whereas it was constant with left atrial cannulation. Ejection fraction with left atrial cannulation decreased as the assist rate increased, whereas that with left ventricular cannulation was maintained up to 75% assist. The external work with left atrial cannulation decreased gradually as the assist rate increased, whereas the external work with left ventricular cannulation did not decrease until the assist rate reached 75%. The myocardial oxygen consumption in both cannulations decreased proportionally as the assist rate increased; they were significantly less with left ventricular cannulation at the 100% assist rate than with left atrial cannulation. CONCLUSION: Left ventricular cannulation during left ventricular assistance maintains ejection fraction and effectively reduces oxygen consumption.

Prediction of Hemolysis in Turbulent Shear Orifice Flow.

This study proposes a method of predicting hemolysis induced by turbulent shear stress (Reynolds stress) in a simplified orifice pipe flow. In developing centrifugal blood pumps, there has been a serious problem with hemolysis at the impeller or casing edge; because of flow separation and turbulence in these regions. In the present study, hemolysis caused by turbulent shear stress must occur at high shear stress levels in regions near the edge of an orifice pipe flow. We have computed turbulent shear flow using the low-Reynolds number k -ε model. We found that the computed turbulent shear stress near the edge was several hundreds times that of the laminar shear stress (molecular shear stress). The peak turbulent shear stress is much greater than that obtained in conventional hemolysis testing using a viscometer apparatus. Thus, these high turbulent shear stresses should not be ignored in estimating hemolysis in this blood flow. Using an integrated power by shear force, it is optimimal to determine the threshold of the turbulent shear stress by comparing computed stress levels with those of hemolysis experiments of pipe orifice blood flow.