Washington: Scientists have created what
they claim is a wireless heart pump, thereby avoiding the need
for infection-prone power cables running through the chest and
and eventually offering an alternative to heart transplants.
Previous heart pumps needed wires through the chest
to get their power which was a source of serious infection in
as many as 40 percent of patients. Now, an international team
has come up with a technology to power a wireless heart pump.
According to the scientists, the wireless heart pump
uses magnetic fields to transfer power through a person`s skin
rather than using wire cables. The pump can be powered this
way 24 hours a day for a person`s lifetime.
The scientists, led by Auckland University, have
now floated a new company, TETCor, to take the technology to
market for powering a wide range of devices implanted in human
body.
According to TETCor CEO, Dr Simon Malpas, heart pumps
need a huge amount of power. And the only way to power current
artificial heart pumps is through a wire cable that goes via a
patient`s stomach and chest.
He said these wires cause serious infections, often
leading to death in about 40 percent of patients.
"This new wireless heart pump weights only 92 grams
and measures just seven centimetres by three centimetres. It
uses a coil outside a person`s body to generate a magnetic
field. A second coil placed inside a person`s body, near the
collar bone, picks up the signal from this field and creates
power for the pump," Dr Malpas said.
Dr Malpas said previous attempts at making wireless
heart pumps produced too much heat. These earlier pumps would
have ended up "cooking a person from the inside". "The secret
of this new technology is to deliver exactly the right amount
of power, thereby eliminating the heating problem."
Bureau Report
