The hemodynamics and blood trauma in axial blood pump under different operating models.

BACKGROUND

Speed modulation of blood pumps has been proved to help restore vascular pulsatility and implemented clinically during treatment for cardiac failure. However, its effect on blood trauma has not been studied thoroughly.

METHODS

In this paper, we study the flow field of an axial pump FW-X under the modes of co-pulse, counter pulse, and constant speed to evaluate the blood trauma. Based on the coupling model of cardiovascular systems and axial blood pump, aortic pressure and the pump flow were obtained and applied as the boundary conditions at the pump outlet and inlet. The level of shear stress and hemolysis index were derived from computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation.

RESULTS

Results showed that the constant speed mode had the lowest shear stress level and hemolytic index at the expense of diminished pulsatility. Compared with the constant speed mode, the hemolysis index of co-pulse and counter pulse mode was higher, but it was helpful to restore vascular pulsatility.

CONCLUSIONS

This method can be easily incorporated in the in vitro testing phase to analyze and decrease a pump's trauma before animal experimentation, thereby reducing the cost of blood pump development.