Design and Evaluation of a Blood-Contacting Medical Device for Improving Functionality and Durability of Vascular Anastomosis

Abstract

An example of vascular anastomosis is coronary artery bypass grafting (or CABG), which is the most common open-heart surgery in the United States today. It is used to treat people with coronary heart disease. Although it generally produces good outcomes, it is not without risk of failure. Due to rotation-related fluid stress on the graft at the point of attachment, possibility of clots forming at extraction and perfusion sites is high. The possibility of endothelialization at the suture joints carries a further risk of flow obstruction. Present research proposes a new blood contacting medical device that is attached to both ends of a vascular graft, and aids in flow rotation at the points of blood extraction and perfusion, thereby alleviating the possibility of clotting at those sites. It also shifts the suture lines such that the endothelialization causes minimal flow obstruction compared to current techniques. Simplified 3D models of both the current grafting technique and the proposed device are evaluated with periodic rectified sine pulse acting as a surrogate for human blood pulse. For both perfusion and extraction, better outcomes were observed for vascular anastomosis with the proposed blood contacting medical device.