IN VIVO EVALUATION OF THE CorAide RIGHT VENTRICULAR ASSIST DEVICE (RVAD) (original) (raw)

The conventional pneumatic drivers for ventricular assist device(VAD) have been relatively large in size and heavy in weight. Recently, portable size drivers are developed and applied in clinical area to give the patients extended scope of activity and convenience of daily life. Additionally, they contributed out of hospital home discharge of pneumatic VAD patients in the clinical aspect. There is still possibility of reducing the size and weight of the pneumatic driver for wearable size. In this paper, simple driving mechanism is suggested for electropneumatic biventricular assist device actuator with smaller size and reduced weight. Our electropneumatic actuator is composed of brushless DC motor, ball screw, two push plates and bellows as major part. The push plates modulate the volume of the bellows. This bellows volume change generates the pressure of the pneumatic circuit for blood pumping. The bellows is manufactured by dipping process with durable polyurethane. The bellows mechanism enabled smaller driver size of 20x30x8cm 3 and reduced weight of 4.0kg including the actuator, controller and battery. To restore the gas leakage, gas compensating system is included, and the short range wireless monitoring is possible with bluetooth module. This wireless monitor/controlling function will improve the mobility of the patients. From the in vitro experiment result, this driver can support 6.5L/min at 100 bpm. And the in vivo animal study showed good performance as biventricular assist device.