Magnevad--the world's smallest magnetic-bearing turbo pump

The first animal implant of our Magnevad LVAD is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2003. This is being performed by the George E. Reed Heart Center of Westchester Medical Center and by New York Medical College; both are in Valhalla, NY. This article summarizes 3 years of development of the miniature axial flow LVAD. Our LVAD has new innovations not found in any other turbo pump to minimize thrombus, blood turbulence, flow separation, and the generation of microemboli. The Magnevad is only 25 mL in volume, similar in size to the Micromed & Jarvik 2000 axial flow turbo pumps that have contacting bearings. US Patent 6 527 699 was issued to Gold Medical on March 4, 2003 and World Wide PCT patents are pending. The discussed improvements (patents pending) are designed to minimize flow separation and turbulence, the precursors of microemboli that lodge in end organs. This problem has been largely ignored in the published literature. A new long-term stable miniature ultrasonic position sensor is used for bearing control. It measures the axial position of the rotor to obtain LVAD differential pressure. Differential pressure is used to obtain pulsating flow and automatic physiologic control. The term "fourth generation pump" is being coined for the Magnevad because in addition to being noncontacting, it inherently measures pump differential pressure on which physiologic control can be based.