A reproduction of inflow restriction in the mock circulatory system to evaluate a hydrodynamic performance of a ventricular assist device in practical conditions

A novel in vitro mock circulatory system, which enables to reproduce an inflow restriction, simulating blood volume pooling due to heart failure, was developed to evaluate a hydrodynamic performance of a pulsatile ventricular assist device (VAD) in practical conditions. The concept of this development was motivated by a difference of an inflow restriction between in vitro and in vivo environments. The major idea of this study is to reproduce an inflow restriction by using a centrifugal pump placed at an inflow side of a left ventricular model instead of a constant head reservoir in a conventional circuit. In the novel circuit, the maximum flow rate was obtained at lower systolic fraction as compared with a conventional circuit. This similar tendency by the novel one was observed in an acute animal experiment in sheep. This result suggests that a new mock circuit is effective to confirm a practical drive strategy of the VAD for various diseased conditions.