New externally controlled drug infusion pump.

Abstract

An externally controlled infusion pump has been developed to deliver drug solution with a constant rate outflow. The prototype consisted of basically two units, the drug container and the external control unit. The container has two main functions : (1) drug storage and (2) drug supply. The driving force was derived from the external control unit and was conducted magnetically to the container. The external unit has basically two functions : (1) producing the driving force and (2) controlling the force. Using a popular laboratory timer as an external control unit, a prototype was built. The quality of the prototype was tested in an in vitro drug liveration experiment. As a drug solution, five ml of 5% 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) solution was introduced into the drug chamber, and the external control unit was set to rotate once and hour at the distance of 2.5 cm from the chamber. Just after the operation of the external unit, the outflow rate of 5-FU solution from the chamber was monitored for 60 min at 2-min intervals. After three experiments on different days, this system was confirmed to work well and the outflow rate was reproducible and showed high accuracy.