Open-Source Image-Based Tool to Experimentally Evaluate Blood Residence Time in Clinical Devices

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Medical Device Design
• Fluid Dynamics

Background:

• Accurate assessment of blood residence time is critical for optimizing biomedical device performance.
• Existing methods for measuring blood residence time can be complex or lack accessibility.
• Blood oxygenators require precise flow dynamics to ensure patient safety and efficacy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel, open-source, image-based methodology for quantifying blood residence time in biomedical devices.
• To provide a user-friendly tool for researchers and engineers to experimentally compare device performance.
• To validate the method by comparing blood analog residence times in three distinct blood oxygenator prototypes.

Main Methods:

• Development of an image-based experimental technique to track blood analog flow.
• Creation of a postprocessing workflow for detailed residence time analysis.
• Implementation of a MATLAB application for accessible data analysis and visualization.

Main Results:

• The study successfully established an experimental and computational workflow for residence time analysis.
• A comprehensive comparison of residence times across three blood oxygenator designs was conducted.
• The developed MATLAB tool demonstrated ease of use and effective data processing.

Conclusions:

• The presented open-source tool offers a standardized and accessible method for evaluating blood residence time in biomedical devices.
• This approach enables robust experimental comparison of device designs, particularly blood oxygenators.
• The tool's availability promotes wider adoption and advancement in medical device research and development.