The role of blood pumps in contributing to adverse effects at the lower blood flow rates used during ECCO2R is shown here to be significant.

Current rotary blood pumps should be used with caution if operated at blood flow rates below 2 L/min, because of significant and high recirculation, shear stress, and hemolysis.

There is a clear and urgent need to design dedicated blood pumps which are optimized for blood flow rates in the range of 0.5–1.5 L/min.

The hydraulic efficiency dramatically decreases to 5–10% if operating at blood flow rates below 1 L/min, the pump internal flow recirculation rate increases 6–12-fold in these flow ranges, and adverse effects are increased due to multiple exposures to high shear stress.

High-resolution computational fluid dynamics was used to calculate the hemodynamics and hemocompatibility of three current rotary blood pumps for various pump flow rates.

Read More