Portable Artificial Heart
St. Petersburg scientists have developed an experimental prototype of a portable device that allows restoring blood circulation in the body artificially, BelTA reports. Its implementation will expand the possibilities of resuscitation, and the possibilities of transplantology will double, the scientific director of the project, the head of the Organ Donation Center of the Institute of Emergency Medicine told TASS. Dzhanelidze Oleg Reznik.
"This is a portable perfusion device, it works like an artificial heart taken outside the body," the scientist said, explaining that artificial blood circulation is now used in hospitals for open–heart surgery, but there are no portable devices.
Equipping ambulances and emergency crews with such devices will expand the arsenal of resuscitators. "In medical practice, there are cases when artificial blood circulation could save a person's life if doctors had an appropriate device at hand," Reznik said.
In the event that life could not be saved, the device can become indispensable in transplantology. It will ensure the safety of organs until the moment when relatives decide on the possibility (or impossibility) of using them to save the life of another person in need of a transplant. Scientists have already made sure of the device's ability to preserve kidneys, liver, lungs, and the possibility of preserving the heart is being investigated, Reznik added.
"The introduction of the device into a wide medical practice will double the possibilities of medicine for organ transplantation. Each case of using the device for transplantology purposes will save at least two patients in need of transplantation," said the scientific director of the project. According to him, the ratio of performed organ transplantation operations and the need for them in the United States is 1 to 13, and in Russia the need is even greater.
The scientist added that it is possible to obtain an industrial design based on an experimental prototype of a device for artificial restoration of blood circulation in two years, having invested more than 100 million rubles in research. The development group includes the Research Institute of Ambulance named after. Janelidze, the First Medical University named after Pavlova, the company "Transbiotek". Since 2014, the project has been supervised by the Skolkovo Foundation, the developer company Transbiotech has become one of the residents of the foundation.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru27.03.2015