Brian Burg (CorWave, Paris). The CorWave LVAD: Supporting the heart with help of a wave.

Heart failure affects roughly 40 million people globally. In developed countries around 6-10 % of adults over the age of 65 are affected by it. In the case of left-sided heart failure, the most frequent type of heart failure, a left-ventricular assist device (LVAD) may be implanted to support the blood pumping capability of the heart. All currently approved LVAD systems are based on centrifugal pumping technology, either axial or radial. The high inertia of the rotating impeller prevents these systems from pumping blood in a pulsatile manner. Continuous blood flow is suspected to be at the origin of severe adverse effects of the therapy, notably bleeding and strokes.

To this end CorWave is developing an LVAD based on a low-inertia undulating membrane pumping mechanism which can provide pulsatile blood flow mimicking the native action of the heart. In this presentation the underlying concepts of the system will be introduced with a particular focus on the pumping mechanism and its pertinence to the classical fields of mechanical engineering, ranging from classical mechanics (kinetics), to solid mechanics (material failure) and fluid mechanics (fluid-structure interaction). Intersections with electrical engineering (motor design) and biology (blood) will also be highlighted. Ultimately, this highly interdisciplinary engineering problem is expected to improve patient outcomes by emulating the native pulsatility of the heart.