Hemodynamic design requirements for in-series thoracic artificial lung attachment in a model of pulmonary hypertension.

Recent thoracic artificial lung (TAL) prototypes have impedances lower than the natural lung. With these devices, proximal pulmonary artery (PA) to distal PA TAL attachment may be possible in patients without right ventricular dysfunction. This study examined the relationship between pulmonary system impedance and cardiac output (CO) to create TAL design constraints.

In-parallel artificial lung attachment at high flows in normal and pulmonary hypertension models.

Background: End-stage lung disease patients who require a thoracic artificial lung (TAL) must be extubated and rehabilitated prior to lung transplantation. The purpose of this study is to evaluate hemodynamics and TAL function under simulated rest and exercise conditions in normal and pulmonary hypertension sheep models.

Methods: The TAL, the MC3 Biolung (MC3, Inc, Ann Arbor, MI), was attached between the pulmonary artery and left atrium in nine normal sheep and eight sheep with chronic pulmonary hypertension.