Remarkable Heart-Compressing Automaton Maintains Blood Circulation in Ailing Organs
A groundbreaking soft robotic device, designed to assist failing hearts, is set to revolutionise the treatment of heart failure patients. This innovative technology, which wraps around the heart itself, provides external compression precisely where it's needed, offering selective assistance to either ventricle - a significant advance particularly beneficial for patients with congenital heart conditions that affect only one side of the heart.
The device, made from soft materials such as responsive gels or polymers embedded with sensors and actuators, operates as a flexible, conformable actuator. It gently wraps around the exterior of the heart and rhythmically contracts and relaxes in synchrony with the heart's natural beat.
Advantages over traditional heart pumps are numerous. The soft and flexible design of the device conforms to the heart's shape and moves synchronously with it, reducing mechanical mismatch and potential damage to heart tissue. The reduced invasiveness and improved biocompatibility of the device may lower risks of blood clotting, infection, and immune rejection associated with implanted mechanical pumps.
Moreover, the device can integrate biosignals (like heart rate) to adapt its assistive contractions dynamically, providing a more natural and efficient support that can improve cardiac output while allowing the heart muscle to rest and recover. The potential for self-powered or autonomous function, thanks to advances in soft bioelectronics, suggests such devices might harvest body motion energy or use autonomous physical intelligence, leading to longer device lifespans and less dependency on external power sources.
The device's squeezing and relaxing motion mirrors the heart's natural systole and diastole cycle. In laboratory tests using beating pig hearts, the device successfully maintained adequate blood flow in all test scenarios, demonstrating impressive results. The elimination of blood-device contact potentially eliminates the risk of hemolysis, a common complication with traditional ventricular assist devices (VADs).
Furthermore, the device can selectively assist either the left or right ventricle independently, a feature that could substantially reduce infection risk, as a fully implantable system without blood contact could. Human trials for this technology are potentially just a few years away. Long-term animal testing is planned for the validation of this technology, with the aim of offering a promising alternative for treating heart failure patients by providing gentle, adaptive mechanical support that works in harmony with the heart’s own activity. This innovation represents a shift from rigid mechanical assistance toward soft, sensor-integrated, and feedback-regulated cardiac therapy.
This groundbreaking technology, designed for heart failure patients, not only operates as a flexible, conformable actuator but also integrates with science and medical-conditions through biosignals like heart rate, making it a significant advance in health-and-wellness, particularly beneficial for individuals with congenital heart conditions that affect only one side of the heart. With its potential for self-powered function and reduced risks of blood clotting, infection, and immune rejection, this device could revolutionize cardiovascular health by offering a more natural, efficient, and less invasive solution for cardiac output improvement.
