A single pulsatile pump for total biventricular cardiac support using patient lung ventilation.

An extracorporeal pulsatile heart pump has been modified to render biventricular cardiac support while maintaining automatic volume balance between the left and right sides. The device consists of two independent fluid circuits, externally valved and compressed by a common pusher plate configuration. Because the pusher plate compresses both circuits simultaneously, the volume-heavy side is unloaded via larger stroke volumes until the two sides achieve a balanced stroke volume. The process is automatic from beat-to-beat and is not dependent upon external pressure or flow transducers to maintain equilibrium. Two in vivo studies in pigs weighing 25 kg have demonstrated the feasibility of the concept, with physiologic aortic and pulmonary artery flow during 2 hr of ac-induced ventricular fibrillation and oscillatory ventilator support via left atrium-to-aorta and right atrium-to-pulmonary artery cannulation. Efforts to scale up to human adult size requirements have resulted in in vitro outputs of up to 7.0 L/min in each circuit.