Fabrication of a jellyfish valve for use in an artificial heart.
For a valve to be fabricated seamlessly into an artificial heart (AH) blood pump, a jellyfish valve has been developed, in which a thin membrane is fixed at the center of a valve seat having several spokes to protect against prolapse of the membrane. The valve is superior in performances to a Björk-Shiley valve, and reveals good blood compatibility. The valve would be very useful not only for AH animal study, but for future clinical use in infants to adults. Several institutions are already trying the valve. In this paper, the fabrication of the jellyfish valve is introduced, and in vitro and in vivo results summarized. A computer aided design (CAD) system was developed to cut a male wax mold of the valve seat. The input parameters to the CAD are diameter, height, thickness of rim, number of spokes, width and thickness of spokes, etc. Jellyfish valves with diameters of 4 to 27 mm have already been fabricated for many types of AHs and assist pumps.
Imachi
K
K
Institute of Medical Electronics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tokyo, Japan.
Mabuchi
K
K
Chinzei
T
T
Abe
Y
Y
Imanishi
K
K
Yonezawa
T
T
Kouno
A
A
Ono
T
T
Nozawa
H
H
Isoyama
T
T
D000818:Animals; D001698:Biomedical Engineering; D017076:Computer-Aided Design; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006041:Goats; D006350:Heart Valve Prosthesis; D006354:Heart, Artificial; D006439:Hemodynamics; D006801:Humans; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D008422:Materials Testing; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D011474:Prosthesis Design