Calon-Cardio's Fully Implantable ventricular assist device

大多数慢性心脏病患者最终都会患上心力衰竭。随着人口老龄化和心脏病治疗的进步，心力衰竭患者的数量不断增加。虽然大多数患者在使用标准药物和手术后几年内会保持稳定，但越来越多的患者会出现晚期心力衰竭的症状，并可能被转介进行心脏移植的评估。对于那些病情严重到无法等待心脏捐赠者或因年龄或其他医疗问题而无法接受心脏移植的患者，脑室辅助装置(VAD)提供了挽救生命的疗法，也是恢复良好生活质量的唯一希望。这些设备最初被设计为临时支持患者与心脏移植之间的桥梁，现在被用作终生支持或目的地治疗。然而，目前的技术仍然不完善，需要管理不良事件(AEs)。这个项目将开发一种完全可植入的VAD，专门解决目前VAD的主要弱点，提供改善的血流动力学性能，消除传动系统感染风险，降低制造和寿命成本，并给予患者自由执行日常任务的自由。我们新的FIVAD的新颖设计将结合机械工程、电气工程、计算流体动力学和生物医学工程的专业知识，提供一种新型的泵和无线能源技术。

The majority of chronic heart disease patients ultimately suffer from heart failure. With the ageing of the population and advances in the treatment of cardiac disease, the number of patients with heart failure continues to increase. Although the majority of patients will remain stable for several years with standard medicines and surgery, a growing number will develop symptoms of advanced heart failure and may be referred for evaluation for heart transplantation. For selected patients who are too ill to wait for a heart donor or who are not eligible for a heart transplant because of age or other medical problems, ventricular assist devices (VADs) offer life-saving therapy and the only hope of returning to a good quality of life. Initially designed as temporary support to bridge patients to heart transplant, these devices are now being used as lifetime support or destination therapy. However, current technology is still imperfect with a recognised need to manage adverse events (AEs).This project will develop a Fully Implantable VAD to specifically address the main weaknesses of current VADs with a pump that offers improved haemodynamic performance, the elimination of driveline infection risk, lower manufacture and lifetime costs, and gives patients the freedom to perform everyday tasks unencumbered.The novel design of our new FIVAD will bring together expertise in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computational fluid dynamics, and biomedical engineering to deliver a novel pump and wireless energy technology.