New investigations of a pulsatile impeller blood pump.

For circulatory assist devices and total artificial heart systems, impeller blood pumps with small total volumes would be fully implantable. One of the main obstacles, however, is generation of a pulsatile flow. The simplest way to overcome this problem is by changing the pump's revolutions per minute (rpm) periodically, but this often results in severe hemolysis. After theoretic analysis, two in vitro models of impeller blood pumps have been devised, producing pulsatile flow with constant rpm. In the first model, the impeller oscillates in an axial direction during constant rotation. The pump is driven by a DC motor (rotating) and a pneumatic device (oscillating). The form of the pulsatile pressure wave depends upon duration and amplitude of the oscillation. With 40% systolic duration and a 50 mm axial amplitude, a 70 mmHg pressure amplitude (170/100) is achieved with a semiphysiologic shape at a flow of 12 L/min. The second model produces a pulsatile flow by differing the gaps between impeller and cap on the inlet pipe. Both the cap and impeller have cone-shaped heads, and impeller oscillations of 1.5-2 mm, for example, results in a pressure pulse of 40 mmHg (150-110) at 7 L/min flow. Results of theoretic analyses have shown that both models create less turbulence in the impeller, with a consequent reduction in blood cell damage as compared to pumps with changing rpms.