Computational and Experimental Assessment of Shear-Induced Blood Trauma by HeartMate II, HeartMate 3, and BrioVAD

Although durable mechanical circulatory support (MCS) has been promising in supporting advanced heart failure patients, device hemocompatibility-related complications remain a major concern compared with heart transplantation. We investigated the blood damage potential of the three most recent clinically available, implantable MCS devices and compared their biocompatibility performance. One axial pump (HeartMate II) and two centrifugal pumps (HeartMate 3 and BrioVAD) were chosen for this study. In vitro experiments with healthy human blood and computational fluid dynamics simulations were performed to compare high-mechanical shear-induced blood trauma in these devices. Regions of higher shear stresses were identified. Power-law relations between shear stress and blood damage were implemented to assess hemolysis, platelet activation, and platelet receptor shedding of key functional receptors (glycoprotein [GP] Ibα, and GPVI) caused by these devices. HeartMate II caused the most severe blood trauma among these three devices, producing an order of magnitude larger values for hemolysis and platelet activation compared with HeartMate 3 and BrioVAD. Also, HeartMate II consistently exhibited the highest levels of receptor shedding, approximately double those caused by the HeartMate 3 and BrioVAD. The HeartMate 3 and BrioVAD centrifugal pumps showed similar performance in terms of blood damage.