Development of evaluation system for artificial organs from the viewpoints of clinical study, engineering, and statistics.

为了从血流动力学的角度评价人工器官，如心脏辅助系统、人工心脏瓣膜和人造动脉移植物，研制了一种循环模拟器。在模拟器上进行了用于右室辅助系统的旋转泵和新设计的主-股假体Y形移植物的一些实验。结果表明，一定程度上增加了支管直径，增加了流过接枝的流量。在这项研究中，设计了一种新的压力传感器和一种临床应用的膨胀管。前者足够小，可以固定在人造器官中，在其中可以测量压力。后者的设计目的是将管子的直径扩大为气管导管和用于左心室搭桥的插管。这些发明正在提交专利申请。此外，还开发了一个新的数据库系统，用于对临床数据进行统计分析。该系统对脉搏波传导速度(PWV)等临床数据进行了实际分析，发现随着PWV的升高，死亡风险有增加的趋势。预计该模拟器与数据库系统的结合将有助于从临床研究、工程和统计学的角度对人工器官进行评价。

A circulatory simulator was developed in order to evaluate artificial organs such as ventricular assist systems, artificial heart valves, and arterial prosthetic grafts from the view point of hemodynamics. Some experiments were conducted to demonstrate characteristics of a rotary pump used for a right ventricular assist system and a newly designed aortofemoral prosthetic Y graft in the simulator. As a result, it was revealed that there was definitely an incremental increase in the branch diameter increasing the flow rate through the graft. In this study, a newly designed pressure transducer and an expandable tube for clinical application were devised. The former is enough small to be fixed into artificial organs in which the pressure can be measured. The latter was designed to expand the diameter of the tube as a tracheal tube and a cannula for left ventricular bypass. These inventions are lodging patent applications. In addition, a new database system was developed in order to analyze clinical data statistically. Clinical data including pulse wave velocity (PWV) were analyzed actually by the system and it was revealed the tendency that the risk of the death increases accompanied by increase in PWV as a result. It is supposed that the combination of the simulator and the database system will be useful to evaluate artificial organs from the viewpoints of clinical study, engineering, and statistics.