Affiliation:
1. University of Athens School of Medicine Department of Clinical Therapeutics Athens, Greece
Abstract
The counterpulsation technique has been widely used for the as sistance of the acutely failing left ventricle utilizing the intraaortic balloon pump. However, a variety of other counterpulsation devices are available. To evaluate a counterpulsation device several variables need to be considered: (1) experimental and clinical determination of the salutary effects of the device on the left ventricular ejection fraction, cardiac output, aortic pressures, left ven tricular end-diastolic pressure, tension-time index, diastolic pressure-time in dex and endocardial viability ratio; (2) experimental and clinical estimation of the device biocompatibility, and (3) the clinical improvement of the assisted patients.
Subject
Biomedical Engineering,Biomaterials