AN ARTIFICIAL lung powered by a patient鈥檚 heart is now in the early stages of development. The biolung is designed to keep dangerously ill patients alive while they wait for a lung transplant. Unlike previous artificial lungs, the new device is small enough to be completely implanted in a patient鈥檚 chest.
In the US alone, 4000 people with chronic lung diseases such as cystic fibrosis or emphysema need a lung transplant. But the average wait is two years, and only around 1000 people actually get a transplant in any one year. Today鈥檚 models are large, electric-powered machines that sit outside the body removing CO2 and oxygenating the blood. But they can only extend a person鈥檚 life by a few days.
Bartlett says the new device鈥攎ade by MC3 of Ann Arbor, Michigan鈥攃ould one day take over the function of both lungs and keep a patient healthy enough for a transplant for several months. It鈥檚 secret? Inside the beer-can-sized unit is a chamber filled with bundles of hollow fibres peppered with tiny micropores, a bit like the inside of a real lung.
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The patient鈥檚 heart forces blood from the pulmonary artery through the porous fibres inside the artificial lung where CO2 in the blood is exchanged for oxygen. Then the blood flows back to the pulmonary artery and circulates through the patient鈥檚 own lungs, or it can flow directly to the heart before being sent round the body.
The biolung has already performed well in tests on sheep, and could go into clinical trials as early as next year, Bartlett told a meeting of the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs in New York City last week.