• International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.40-46
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• 2006

The market of programmable implantable pumps has bound to a monopolistic situation, inducing high device costs, thus making them inaccessible to most patients. Micro-mechanical and medical innovations allow improved performances by reducing the dimensions. This affects the consumption and weight, and, by reducing the number of parts, the cost is also affected. This paper presents the procedure followed to design an innovative implantable drug delivery system. This drug delivery system consists of a low flow pump which shall be implanted in the human body to relieve pain. In comparison to classical known solutions, this pump presents many advantages of high interest in both medical and mechanical terms. The first section of the article describes the specifications which would characterize a perfect delivery system from every points of view. This concerns shape, medication, flow, autonomy, biocompatibility, security and sterilization ability. Afterwards, an overview of existing systems is proposed in a decisional tree. Positive displacement motorized pumps are classified into three main groups: the continuous movement group, the fractioned translation group and the alternative movement group. These systems are described and the different problems which are specific to these mechanisms are presented. Since none of them fully satisfy the specifications, an innovation is justified.. The decisional tree is therefore extended by adding new principles: fractioned refilling and fractioned injection within the fractioned translation movement group, spider guiding system within the alternative translation movement group, rotational bearing guided device and notch hinge guided device in the alternative rotation movement group.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.349-358
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• 2001

A novel electro-mechanical implantable ventricular assist system is developed as a bridge to transplantation or recovery for patients with end-stage heart failure. The developed system is composed of an implanted blood pump, an external monitoring system which stores data, and a wearable system including a portable external driver and a portable power supply system. The blood pump is designed to be implanted into the left upper abdominal space and provides blood flow from the left ventricular apex to the aorta. The pulsatile blood flow is generated by a double cylindrical cam. There was mo excessive heat emission from the blood pump into the temperature-controlled chamber in the heat test and no stagnated flow within the blood sac by the observation in the flow visualization test. Animal experiments were performed using sheep and calves. The maximum assist flow rate reached 7.85L/min in the animal experiment. The evaluation results showed that the developed system was feasible for the implantable ventricular assist system. The long-term in vitro durability test and mid-term in vivo experiments are in progress and mow the modified next model is under development.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.40-45
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• 2008

This paper proposes a tube pump composed of small-sized cams and followers for an implantable intrathecal drug infusion device. Each followers is driven by a cam and liquid is discharged by a sequential reciprocal motion of the followers. The advantage of this structure is that it allows the pump to be clean and valveless. To design a small-sized, low power pump some analysis were performed to determine the design parameters of the cam, follower and the tube. To verify the feasibility of the experiment, a prototype was manufactured and its operating characteristics were investigated. Experimental results were in accordance with the expected results obtained from analysis.

• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.74-77
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• 2009

Implantable intrathecal pump is one of the therapeutic options for intractable pain. A 24-year-old male with complex regional pain syndrome was suffering from right lower extremity pain. He had all modalities of treatment including spinal cord stimulator. However, his pain had been worse in the past 6 months. His visual analogue pain scale (VAS) was 8-10 and he could not sit or walk. Only opioid was thought to be effective. Then, intrathecal pump was considered. We estimated the minimal effective dose of spinal morphine before implantation. 0.3 mg of morphine was injected intrathecally as a starting dose. Dosage had been increased up to 0.8 mg in 10 days. His VAS score decreased from 8 to 5. He could sleep without pain and walk with crutch. Therefore, intrathecal pump was inserted. He could tolerate to pain. This case suggests that intrathecal morphine delivery can provide effective treatment for intractable non-malignant pain.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.31-37
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• 2009

This paper presents a implantable intrathecal drug infusion pump for pain control in cancer patients. This device consists of micropump module, drug reservoir module and control module. The micropump module using cam-follower mechanism composed of small-sized four cams and four followers. Each followers is driven by a cam and liquid is discharged by a sequential reciprocal motion of the followers. The advantage of this structure is that it allows the pump to be clean and valveless. The drug reservoir module composed of drug chamber, gas chamber and diaphragm. The control module composed of battery, wireless communication unit and controller. To design a small-sized, low power pump some analysis were performed to determine the design parameters. To verify the feasibility of the experiment, a prototype was manufactured and its operating characteristics were investigated. Experimental results were in accordance with the expected results obtained from analysis.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
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• v.1996 no.05
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• pp.199-202
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• 1996

Artificial hearts are intended for use in patients with severe forms of heart disease for which no surgical repair is possible. The moving-actuator pump was developed to decrease the overall volume size of the electromechanical total artificial heart (TAH) by eliminating the occupied space of the fixed-actuator in the conventional pusher-plate type pump. In our pump, the actuator moves back and forth for alternative ejections of left and right ventricles. The problem of fitting the TAH to atrial remnants and arterial vessels could also be improved by circular or penduluous mot ion of the actuator instead of linear mot ion of the pusher-plate in the conventional pumps. We have evaluated two types of moving- actuator pump; one is a rolling cylinder type, and the other a pendulum type pump. In the rolling cylinder pump, frictional energy loss exists between the pump housing's guide bars and the actuator's end caps, while the bottom rack under the cylindrical actuator increases the height of the pump, the pump is therefor not implantable inside the small chest of human-sized animals with a body weight of less than 70kg. The new human type pump has a penduluous mot ion actuator to correct the above problems while maintaining the advantage of the moving- actuator's small total volume. The totally implantable TAH is composed of a blood pump, a control system and pheriperal equipments. The blood pump, which is constructed by a moving actuator, a right and left blood sac, and four artificial valves, is implanted in the thoracic. In 1988, the first implantation of the rolling cylinder TAH was performed into a female calf weighing 100kg, and the cal f recovered to the degree of voluntary standing and eat ing and survived to 100 hrs. We then survived two female sheep weighing about 63kg with the new human type TAH for three days.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.310-315
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• 2007

The axial-flow type blood pump(XVAD) which has been developed in our group consists of mechanical parts (an impeller, a diffuser and a flow straightener) and electrical parts (a motor and a magnetic bearing). The magnetic bearing system fully levitates the impeller to remove mechanical coupling with other parts of the pump with constant gap, which needs non-contact type gap sensing. Conventional gap sensors are too large to be adopted to the implantable axial -flow type blood pump. Thus, in this paper, the compact eddy current type gap sensor system proper for the implantable axial-flow type blood pump was developed and its performance was evaluated in vitro. The developed eddy current type gap sensor system is a transformer type and has a differential probe. Sensor coil(probe) has small dimensions(6 mm diameter, 2 mm thickness) and its optimal inductance was determined as 0.068 mH for the measurement range of $0\sim3mm$. It could be manufactured with 130 turns of the 0.04 mm diameter copper coil. The characteristics of the developed eddy current type gap sensor system was evaluated by in vitro experiment. At experiment, it showed satis(actory performance to apply to the magnetic bearing system of the XVAD. It could measure the gap up to 3mm, but the linearity was decreased at the range of $1.8\sim3.0mm$. Moreover, it showed no difference in different media such as the water and the blood at the temperature range of $35\sim40^{\circ}C$.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.291-295
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• 2015

Various types of implantable drug delivery devices have attracted significant attention for several decades to improve drug bioavailability and reduce side effects, thus enhancing therapeutic efficacy and patients' compliance. However, when implanted into the body, the devices may be influenced by the changes in physiological condition, such as temperature, pH or ionic concentration. Thus, the drug release rates could be also altered concurrently. Therefore, in this work, we employed an implantable ALZET$^{(R)}$ Osmotic Pump, which has been widely used to locally deliver various therapeutic agents and examined the effect of pH, temperature and ionic concentration on its drug release rate. For this, we performed in vitro cell tests to simulate the condition of local tissues influenced by the altered drug release rates, where we used diclofenac sodium as a model drug.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.543-546
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• 2021

A 55-year-old woman who had received an implantable left ventricular assist device 3 months earlier presented with dyspnea and a low-flow alarm of the device. Computed tomography and log-file analysis of the device system suggested inflow cannula obstruction. Since the patient had cardiogenic shock due to pump failure, venoarterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) was initiated. With ECMO, surgical exchange of the pump was considered. However, the obstruction spontaneously resolved without surgical intervention. It turned out that an obstructive thrombus was washed out by rebooting the pump. Moreover, the thrombus was embolized in the patient's left subclavian artery. The patient underwent heart transplantation 4 months after the pump obstruction accident and continued to do well.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
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• v.1996 no.11
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• pp.125-128
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• 1996

A new type of motor-driven total artificial heart system with a moving-actuator mechanism has been developed. The prototype system consists of a brushless do motor inside of actuator, two polyurethane sacs, and peripheral devices with internal controller. In this research work, the moving-actuator type electromechanical total artificial heart was redesigned for a good anatomical fitting. For total implantation we are developing the internal controller with high reliability and stability, and automatic control algorithm in response to the physiological requirements of animal. Contents and scope of the research work on ";Development of a totally implantable artificial heart of pre-clinical stage"; is summerized below 1) Animal experiment using sheep(55-60kg) 2) Development of implantable controller 3) Automatic control algorithm 4) Improvement of biocompatibility 5) Redesign of Actuator/blood pump.