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VAD

Wireless charger could power tiny heart pump

With more patients needing heart transplants than there are hearts available, a tiny heart pump called a ventricular assist device (VAD) can be a lifesaver. But the pump, which is inserted into the aorta via a catheter that helps blood flow, requires wiring leads that run out of the patient's body to a battery pack, and this setup can easily result in infection.

So a team of computer and electrical engineering students at Rice University have devised a method to power the VAD without wires breaking through the skin.

The team used a small coil and a battery inserted … Read more

The human heart: One step closer to 'unbreakable'

When the wizard announced in "The Wizard of Oz" that "hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable," he was being technologically visionary. A few weeks after the first successful implant of the world's smallest and lightest ventricular assist device (VAD) at the Heidelberg University Hospital in Germany, cardiac surgeons announced that hearts may now be, in so many words, one step closer to "unbreakable."

The HeartAssist 5, which is the fifth generation VAD evolved from the original DeBakey, weighs in at one fifth of a pound (92 grams) and … Read more