Blood Pump With An Ultrasonic Transducer

Abstract

A blood pump including a ultrasonic sensor mounted in or on a blood contacting surface of said blood pump. The ultrasonic sensor measures blood velocity and reports information to a blood pump controller and wherein the ultrasonic sensor is directed to measure blood velocity in an inflow cannula connected to the blood pump.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD[0001]The present invention relates to an implantable blood pump with an ultrasonic transducer to detect and measure blood flow, and to enable ultrasound imaging.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]In the past, blood pumps have been used successfully to treat patients with late stage congestive heart disease or failure. Commonly, pulsatile blood pumps or continuous flow rotary blood pumps have been connected in parallel to a patient's heart to supplement or assist their heart in pumping blood through the patient's circulatory system. These types of blood pump are been commonly called left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) because they are generally connected between the left ventricle of the patients heart and the aorta to offload the heart.[0003]A preferred example of an implantable rotary blood pump is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,227,797 (Watterson et al). This pump is a continuous flow blood pump which includes a hydrodynamically suspended impeller that rotates to i...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0009]Preferably the blood pump is a rotary blood pump and includes a shaft-less rotary impeller.

Problems solved by technology

The first disadvantage is that the arrangement requires the blood pump and ultrasonic sensor to be extracorporeal relative to the patient, which generally means the patient is bed ridden and restricted to a hospital environment.

The second disadvantage is that the described ultrasonic sensor and blood pump are separate components and are not part of an integrated system.

In addition, the arrangement described has a relatively large surface area of blood contacting regions which may increase the risk of thrombogenesis or cloning.

The third problem is that the described system does not include an automatic control system using the measurements from the ultrasonic transducer to allow a pump controller to automatically adjust the pumping speed set-point of the blood pump without the doctor or clinician manually adjusting the speed, therefore the described system relies entirely on the doctor or clinician detecting a problem and taking immediate action to remedy said problem.

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