HEART INSTITUTE
GREAT AND SMALL
A MINIATURE BYPASS PUMP WITH
BIG POSSIBILITIES
The cardiopulmonary bypass
machine gleams in a corner of the
operating room, a massive device
with a critical job: to pump blood
during open-heart surgery. It’s
designed for adults, and its circuit
capacity can’t be reduced for the
much lower blood volume and
higher circulation of infants, whose
blood can become dangerously
diluted and damaged traveling
through the machine. Pediatric heart
surgeon James Jaggers, M.D., knows
it well and has used it many times.
JAMES JAGGERS, M.D.
in patients with single ventricle
disease. “We realized it had wider
applications,” says Dr. Jaggers.
Wide applications, indeed.
The pump’s small scale
is ideal for infants
and children, but its
potential portability
applies to adults as well.
“Full-size bypass machines are
hard on infants,” he says.
The tubing is completely
interchangeable: for adults, a
surgical team could simply use
a bigger tube.
That simple premise led Dr. Jaggers,
Chief of Pediatric Cardiothoracic
Surgery at Children’s Hospital
Colorado, along with a diverse
team of perfusionists, bioengineers,
and veterinarians, to develop the
miniaturized cardiopulmonary
bypass external compression pump.
“This machine could be in a case
about the size of a shoebox,” says
Dr. Jaggers. “It could be used in the
field or in a military setting. It could
be adapted for transport from one
place to another, from one city to
another. It could become a very small
IV pump that you hook to your belt.”
A reimagining of the bypass
machine on a radically smaller scale,
the new machine employs a cam
device to propel blood through
tubes in a novel configuration never
before described.
Better still, the pump’s unique
architecture minimizes injury to
the blood as it passes through. It’s
a safer, more effective machine at
less than a tenth of the size.
The design, currently in testing,
began as a way to assist circulation
“It works for all patients,” says
Dr. Jaggers. “We believe it will be
a big advancement in care.”
KATHRYN CHATFIELD, M.D., Ph.D.
HEART INSTITUTE
THE WORK OF THE HEART
CLOSING THE CARDIOLOGY GAP BETWEEN KIDS AND ADULTS
The gel stain looks like the ghost of
a bar graph, an array of translucent
purple blocks conjured on clear
contact paper in distorted, miragelike lines.
The blocks are samples of proteins
extracted from the heart tissues,
some healthy, some diseased.
Each block tells Children’s Hospital
Colorado’s Kathryn Chatfield, M.D.,
Ph.D., something about what’s
going on in the heart’s cells.
“These proteins are supposed to
stick together,” she says, tapping
a sallow block with her pen, “but
they’re falling apart.