Breathe easy with this artificial lung that performs like the human lung

There is good news for patients suffering from lung ailments. Instead of having to manage with huge unwieldy ventilators which distil oxygen into human blood that is circulated through a machine in order to be oxygenated, lung ailments can now be resolved, or at least alleviated with this new device created by researchers in Cleveland, Ohio. This is hugely beneficial for all those who are burdened with obtrusive, impractical and painful machines and will also be a step forward in medical innovation and technology. This new research has resulted in an artificial lung which achieves the same performance quality as that of the human lung. It can extract oxygen from the air, a feature which marks its difference from the human lung which of course uses pure undiluted oxygen for respiration.

Lifelike artificial lung

Researchers at the Case Western Reserve University, led by research assistant Joe Potkay, are naturally pleased with this historically significant discovery. Not only does its unique nature allow the artificial lung to be of a size that can be easily implanted within the body, it can also be carried around by the patient in case it is required. Teams from the electrical engineering and the computer science departments have worked tirelessly to create this gift to medical science.

Organic silicon polymers have been used to construct microfluidic networks which measure less than a fourth of the breadth of the human hair, in a bid to recreate the veins, arteries and capillaries of the human circulatory system. This network has been adequately supplied with air flow outlets and channels and the entire system is suitably covered with a gas exchange membrane. The result of this level of precision is to provide a surface-area-to-volume ratio for the exchange of gases which would be comparable to that of a human lung. The advantage that this device offers, setting it apart is that the rate of oxygen efficiency is almost three to five times more than that of currently used artificial ventilators. Tests carried out using pig blood attest to the device’s practicability and portability. Large tanks of oxygen are no longer needed since the machine uses air to obtain oxygen. Moreover, it does not require a mechanical pump.

The artificial lung has so far been conceptualized as a stop gap arrangement for patients with temporary lung ailments or for those who are awaiting a lung transplant. The researchers hope to have human scale artificial breathing devices that can be tested in clinical trials within ten years.

Via: ZDNet