title: Initial in vivo evaluation of the DexAide right ventricular assist device.
abstract: Despite the increasing use of left ventricular assist devices for patients with end-stage congestive heart failure, no implantable, centrifugal right ventricular assist devices (RVADs) are available for those patients with significant right ventricular failure. The DexAide RVAD was developed to provide an implantable RVAD option to surgeons. The aim of this study was to evaluate pump performance in an acute in vivo model. The DexAide RVAD, developed as a modified CorAide left ventricular assist device, was implanted between the right ventricle and the pulmonary artery in four healthy calves. Pump speed was varied from 1800 rpm to 3600 rpm. RVAD performance was analyzed acutely at baseline and under conditions of low circulating volume, high contractility, high pulmonary arterial pressure, vasodilation, and low contractility. Pump flow was well maintained even under conditions of high pulmonary arterial pressure and vasodilation, with the exception of low circulating volume. Under all conditions, pulmonary arterial pressures were not affected by changing pump speed. The DexAide RVAD demonstrated acceptable hemodynamic characteristics for use as an implantable RVAD in the initial acute studies. Further studies are ongoing to examine the biocompatibility of the pump under chronic conditions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Lerner Research Institute, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio 44195, USA.
authors.forename: Yoshio
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ootaki
authors.forename: Keiji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kamohara
authors.forename: Masatoshi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Akiyama
authors.forename: Firas
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Zahr
authors.forename: Michael W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Kopcak
authors.forename: Raymond
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Dessoffy
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Massiello
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Horvath
authors.forename: Ji-Feng
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Benefit
authors.forename: Leonard A R
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Golding
authors.forename: Kiyotaka
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Fukamachi
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001698:Biomedical Engineering; D002417:Cattle; D006352:Heart Ventricles / Q000601:surgery; D006353:Heart-Assist Devices; D006439:Hemodynamics