Around 8% of all newborns with a Congenital Heart Defect (CHD) have a single functioning ventricle. The Fontan surgical procedure has served as a palliation for this anomaly for decades, but the surge..
Around 8% of all newborns with a Congenital Heart Defect (CHD) have a single functioning ventricle. The Fontan surgical procedure has served as a palliation for this anomaly for decades, but the surgery entails multiple complications and survival rate is less than 50% by adulthood [1]. A rapidly testable novel solution to support the Fontan surgery is proposed as a Magnetically-driven Ventricular Assist Device (MVAD) to provide assistance to the cardiovascular circulation while reducing the caval pressure. A benchtop Mock Flow Loop (MFL) of the cardiovascular circulation with a Fontan Total Cavo-Pulmonary Connection (TCPC) is configured to validate this hypothesis. A ferro-fluid solution is mixed in water to simulate magnetically-charged blood. Flow and pressure sensor data at specific points in the MFL are acquired via a National Instruments multichannel data acquisition board and processed using LabView. Two MVAD prototypes consisting of magnetic inductor cores and coils with no moving parts and different wire diameters and wrapping angles are tested to validate the hypothesis and measure the caval pressure reduction. References: [1] Fontan, F., and E. Baudet. "Surgical repair of tricuspid atresia." Thorax 26.3 (1971): 240-248.
