Implant science of artificial organ: design for success

Although many artificial organs have come to be used clinically, there still remain many problems such as thrombus formation, calcification, infection, malfunction, etc., that sometimes expose the patient to danger. One of the causes of these damages is that we do not know the true mechanisms of these phenomena. In other words, the design criteria of implant devices have not yet been established under scientific basis. It is very important that we artificial organ researchers and manufacturers establish the implant science of artificial organs. In this paper, mention is made of the kinds of factors we should consider for the design of artificial organs and how we should approach them scientifically. Also introduced is our approach method for an implantable total artificial heart.