Method for controlling a blood pump
AssigneeAbiomed Europe GmbH
InventorsThorsten Siess, Rainer Damen
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A blood pump is temporarily operated at a low rotational speed lying below a design rotational speed. This involves a risk of thrombogenesis since flow detachments may occur at blades of an impeller of the rotary blood pump. For eliminating deposits at said impeller, the rotational speed of said pump is temporarily increased to the design rotational speed. Alternatively, said pump alternately operates at said design rotational speed and a low rotational speed, and this pulsed operation is synchronized with the heart rate.
Claims8
A method of operating a rotary blood pump comprising:
- providing a rotary blood pump having an impeller shaped such that blood flow over said impeller is detachment free and swirl free at an elevated rotational speed of at least 30,000 rpm to thereby eliminate thrombogenesis on said impeller;
- operating said pump at a lower rotational speed of about 10,000 rpm at which speed thrombogenesis may occur;
- and
- intermittently operating said pump at said elevated rotational speed to eliminate any such thrombogenesis on said impeller.
An intracardiac blood pump comprising an electric motor connected to a controller via a catheter, and an impeller driven by said motor, wherein said impeller is shaped such that while thrombogenesis may occur at a lower rotational speed of about 10,000 rpm, blood flow over said impeller is detachment free and swirl free at an elevated rotational speed of at least 30,000 rpm at which thrombogenesis forming on said impeller is eliminated, wherein said controller varies a rotational speed of said pump between said elevated rotational speed and said lower rotational speed.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.