Flexible cable to safely power heart pumps
Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a flexible power cable with craters on the surface to prevent inflammation and infection in the pumps that drive hearts.
The design of the cables to power ventricular assist devices (VAD) allow the outermost layers of skin to heal better and protect the patient from bacteria. Half of all users suffer from infections from the power cable.
ETH Zurich researcher and engineer Andreas Kourouklis has developed a new cable system for heart pumps that doesn’t cause infections. This is particularly important given that ETH sees wireless power transmission being unavailable to patients in the foreseeable future despite recent research advances.
“The thick cable used in existing ventricular assist systems creates an open wound that doesn’t heal and severely compromises patients’ quality of life”, said Kourouklis.
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Scar tissue with a limited blood supply forms around the exit point. This not only impairs the skin’s ability to heal itself but also increases the risk of infection. Since the outer layers of the skin are wounded and loosely attached to the flat surface of the thick cable, they grow in downwards. As a result, bacteria can travel from the surface of the skin into deeper tissue layers, often leading to patients having to struggle with infections and rehospitalisation.
Instead of powering the heart pump via a thick cable that is much stiffer than human skin, they use several thin and flexible wires with a rough, irregular surface. Kourouklis and his team compare their approach with the way in which human hair breaks through the skin without causing infections.
“More flexible wires whose surface is full of microscopic craters help the skin heal,” Kourouklis says. The reason for this is that the outermost layers of skin adhere better to these wires and don’t grow inwards. New tissue forms more quickly, and the skin is more likely to remain intact as a barrier against bacterial infection.
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In contrast to the thick cables, skin integrates better with the new cables and didn’t cause infections in tests. Kourouklis is currently working with medical device engineers and heart surgeons to improve the cable system with further modelling and tests.
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