Vessels Anastomosis Supporting Device for Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting

Abstract

Coronary artery bypass grafting devices using integrated low-level energies adhesion has been developed. A prototype device was developed to establish device operating procedure for quick vascular adhesion and to indicate feasibility of anastomosis with the proposed mechanism. A cylinder part which has a nichrome winding is located at a tip of the prototype device to fix the position of a bypass graft on a coronary with vacuum and to give heat energy to the vessels. The sequence of the suction was suitably selected because the air flow due to suction deteriorated a heating capacity in the temperature measurement test. The prototype device successfully demonstrated the ability of vascular adhesion under blood flow environment. Then, an improved device with a compact cylinder and modified arms which has integrated heating and pressurizing mechanism was developed to easier access to the coronary and to prevent the heater from contacting to surrounding tissues was developed. An anastomosis success rate of the improved device is 83%. In addition, the improved device indicates sufficient tensile force which is 1.4 times higher than that of the prototype device and can withstand a blood pressure of 350 mmHg.