Silicone Heart
Today, about 26 million people in the world suffer from heart failure and have very poor prognoses due to an acute shortage of donor organs. Therefore, the creation of artificial blood pumps to support the vital activity of the patient during the waiting period for a donor organ is more than an urgent task.
Researchers at the Swiss Higher Technical School of Zurich, led by Professor Wendelin Stark, have developed and tested in the laboratory a silicone heart that contracts almost like the heart of a living person.
The purpose of creating the first soft artificial heart was to obtain as accurate a copy of a living organ as possible. The reason why the researchers set out to create a soft analogue of a human organ is obvious: the blood pumps currently used have many disadvantages. Their mechanical parts are associated with the risk of complications, and the pulse wave differs from the physiological one, which is considered unfavorable for the patient's condition.
The first prototype of a soft artificial heart was created from silicone using three-dimensional printing and casting technology based on a melting model. It weighs 390 g, has a volume of 697 cm3 and is a monoblock with a complex internal structure. So far, the artificial organ has no atria and consists only of the right and left ventricles, which are separated not by a septum, but by an additional chamber. This chamber is filled with compressed air and deflated, replacing the contracting muscle tissue and ensuring the pumping of fluid from one chamber of the heart to another.
To test the functionality of the artificial heart, the researchers created a special environment simulating the conditions of the human cardiovascular system, and also used a liquid whose viscosity is comparable to that of blood. Testing has shown that the artificial organ as a whole works and contracts like a human heart. However, there is one serious problem: at the current stage, its viability is only about 3,000 cuts, which corresponds to about 45 minutes. After that, the material loses its ability to withstand the load. The developers explain that their goal was to check the technical feasibility, and not to provide an artificial heart suitable for transplantation. Obviously, the strength of the material and the performance of the device should be significantly increased. However, today the system presented by the authors is one of the best in the world.
Article by Nicholas H. Cohrs et al. A Soft Total Artificial Heart-First Concept Evaluation on a Hybrid Mock Circulation is published in the journal Artificial Organs.
Evgeniya Ryabtseva
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru
13.07.2017