Contact
Dr.-Ing. Thomas Finocchiaro
Tel: +49 241 80 85650
finocchiaro@hia.rwth-aachen.de
Project Partners
Industrial Partners:
Research Institutions:
Aachen Total Artificial Heart (ACcor)
- Figure 1 Complete Aachener TAH-System: Electromechanical TAH (1), Compliance System and Buffer Battery (2), Transcutaneous Energie System (3), External power supply (4).
Background
During the last decades the number of people suffering from heart and circulatory diseases has been growing. The last resort for end-stage heart failure is heart transplantation. But as a great deficit of donor-hearts exists, the number of patients on the waiting list for heart transplantation has become so large, that the average waiting time already exceeds one year. Mechanical circulatory support is a solution for this lack of donor hearts. It can serve not only as a temporary bridge to transplant, but also as a permanent replacement of the natural heart.
Figure 1 shows the patient with the Total Artificial Heart system: the external battery, TET system, internal battery and compliance system are all necessary components for the total artificial heart ACcor.
Principle pump design and function
The Helmholtz Total Artificial Heart MiniACcor (Figure 2) is a double chamber diaphragm pump, which replaces the explanted ventricles functionally and anatomically. It consists of three main components: two diaphragms pump chambers with inlet and outlet valves, and the electromechanical energy converter. The inlets of the pump chambers are connected to the natural atria while the outlets are connected to the aorta and the pulmonary artery, respectively (Figure 1). The energy converter consists of a brushless electronically commutated synchromotor and two reduction and hypocycloid gear units which transform the unidirectional rotational movement of the motor into translatory pusher plate excursions.
- Figure 2 MiniACcor
- Figure 3 Implantation of the Aachener TAH in a calf.
Stage of development
Four acute animal tests in calves have been performed in cooperation with the university hospitals in Vienna and Aachen. The total artificial heart ACcor was capable of providing full circulation for 8,5 hours (Fig. 3). Based upon this experience, a 20% smaller sized version of the TAH, the MiniACcor (Fig. 2) has been designed, manufactured and assembled. The MiniACcor pump unit was extensively tested within circulatory mock loops. The pump delivers flows between 4 to 7 L/min at aortic pressures of 80 to 140 mmHg at different pump rates.
This project was carried out in close cooperation with the Heart- and Diabetes Centre in Bad Oeynhausen (Prof. Dr. R. Körfer, OA Dr. med. A. El Banayosi).
