한국형 인공심장에 대한 동물실험(AnyHeart™)

초록

Korean artificial heart (AnyHeartTM) is a new vision in the management of end stage heart failure. We performed the animal experiments to evaluate the performance and safety of AnyHeart. For last 2 years, 28 various animals (cattle 18, sheep 4, canine 3, goat 1) underwent AnyHeart implantation at Korea University Medical Center and Cheju University Animal Hospital. AnyHeart was applied as an implantable BVAD except a case of implantable LVAD or wearable BVAD. A standard technique of implantation was a right thoracotomy approach (Korea University Technique). The pump output was 6 L/min in maximum and 3-3.5 L/min in average. Other than 4 cases of fitting tests and 2 in the early learning period, all animals were recovered from the operation. The longest observation was made until 37th postoperative day, and the observation was terminated to get a control data while the animal was healthy without complications. All survivors were free from device-related morbidity, and there were no evidence of clinically significant thromboembolic episode, liver functions, renla function, plasma hemoglobin, fibrinogen abnormalities. Appropriate autopsy did not show thrombus in the device or embolism in the organs. Conclusively, AnyHeart has been proved efficient and safe during in-vive implantation. The authors believe that AnyHeart can be applied to clinical situations at the moment and expect to perform a clinical trial to test safety and efficacy in the human body within near future.