Artificial Heart Development

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Introduction

Heart failure is a disease caused by impaired heart pumping function, with a continuously rising number of patients, and a shortage of heart donors, ventricular assist devices (VADs) have gradually become the major choice of heart failure treatment.

Customer Background

N Medical Company is a well-known manufacturer of VAD in China, focusing on the research and production of medium- and short-term ventricular assist devices (VADs).
N Medical is committed to breaking new ground in artificial heart research. By optimizing the hemodynamics mechanism, their VAD devices can significantly enhance blood compatibility to reduce the risk of complications.
Their innovative VAD products primarily serve patients who still require extracorporeal circulation support after open-heart surgery, catering to their unique medical needs during critical recovery.

Challenge

Currently, their research on artificial hearts is entering a rapid development phase, however, researchers still face numerous challenges. The biggest one is the blood pump can damage blood components during operation, leading to clinical symptoms such as thrombosis, hemolysis, and infection, potentially resulting in complications.

As the core component of VAD, the hemolysis performance of the blood pump is a key indicator for evaluating its clinical safety.
Before manufacturing prototypes of the VAD, the hemodynamic characteristics will be used to analyze and calculate the performance of the new blood pump.

Determining if the blood pressure-flow relationship meets the expected requirements is the main focus of research on VAD.

Solution

To address these challenges, N Medical adopted the XY-TEK CG series clamp-on ultrasonic flow sensor, a non-intrusive flow sensor known for its precision and accuracy. To achieve multi-objective hemodynamic optimization for the blood pump, N Medical chose the XY-TEK CG series clamp-on ultrasonic flow sensor during research.

CG series non-invasive ultrasonic flow sensor features a clamp-on design, allowing for the easy installation on the tubing of the VAD.
It monitors blood flow status in real-time, accurately capturing key data such as blood flow rate, cumulative volume, and flow direction, transmitting the data to the research monitoring system for analysis and processing.

These flow data aid researchers in making informed decisions while also adjusting and optimizing the hemodynamic characteristics of the VAD.

Customer Value

During the R&D and production phases, especially in laboratory simulation tests, the ability to accurately and in real-time monitor the blood pump flow rate in the VAD.
Significantly enhances research efficiency and accelerates the design process.
Deepens understanding of the hemodynamics and fosters ongoing innovation in the development process of VAD.
When blood is subjected to a certain shear stress, its cellular components and network structure will change over time, resulting in complex mechanical behaviors such as viscoelasticity and thixotropy. The non-invasive design of the CG series ultrasonic flow sensor avoids system interruption, and cause low fluid pressure loss, improve measurement efficiency.

Related Products: CG Series Ultrasonic External Clamp Flow Sensor

Product Features

• ±3% Accuracy
• Reproducible result for validation
• Non-invasive measurement, hygienic safety
• Multi-function in one system, bidirectional measurement, fluid volume calculation, bubble detection, etc
• Circuits integrated within the sensor, eliminating the need for an external computing processing system, and compact
• No blockage, no steering, and no blind spots

Conclusion

The CG Series Non-invasive Ultrasonic Flow Sensor is particularly suitable for applications with high hygiene requirement, such as flow rate measurement in biopharmaceuticals and medical devices.