The aim of this study is to understand whether the phasic Continuous Flow Left Ventricular Assist Device (CF-LVAD) support would increase the arterial pulsatility. A Micromed DeBakey CF-LVAD was used to apply phasic support in an ex-vivo experimental platform. CF-LVAD was operated over a cardiac cycle by phase-shifting the pulsatile pump control with respect to the heart cycle, in 0.05 s increments in each experiment. The pump flow rate was selected as the control variable and a reference model was used to operate the CF-LVAD at a pulsatile speed. Arterial pulse pressure was the highest (9 mmHg) when the peak pump flow is applied at the peak systole under varying speed CF-LVAD support over a cardiac cycle while it was the lowest (2 mmHg) when the peak pump flow was applied in the diastolic phase. The mean arterial pressure and mean CF-LVAD output were the same in each experiment while arterial pulse pressure and pulsatility index varied depending on the phase of reference pump flow rate signal. CF-LVAD speed should be synchronized considering the timing of peak systole over a cardiac cycle to increase the arterial pulsatility. Moreover, it is possible to decrease the arterial pulsatility under counter-pulsating CF-LVAD support.
Keywords: CF-LVAD; phasic CF-LVAD support; pulsatility; varying speed.