Robotic device grips part of the heart to assist with pumping from outside the heart

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Researchers have made external actuators to help squeeze blood through the heart’s own chamber. This means the patient would need minimal use of anticoagulants. Running heart through pumps requires a lot of anticlotting medicine.

They are working improving portability and miniaturization of the components. Their will be long term trials on animals.

Researchers have made an implantable soft robotic devices to augment cardiac function in isolated left or right heart failure by applying rhythmic loading to either ventricle. Their devices anchor to the interventricular septum and apply forces to the free wall of the ventricle to cause approximation of the septum and free wall in systole and assist with recoil in diastole. Physiological sensing of the native hemodynamics enables organ-in-the-loop control of these robotic implants for fully autonomous augmentation of heart function. The devices are implanted on the beating heart under echocardiography guidance. We demonstrate the concept on both the right and the left ventricles through in vivo studies in a porcine model. Different heart failure models were used to demonstrate device function across a spectrum of hemodynamic conditions associated with right and left heart failure. These acute in vivo studies demonstrate recovery of blood flow and pressure from the baseline heart failure conditions. Significant reductions in diastolic ventricle pressure were also observed, demonstrating improved filling of the ventricles during diastole, which enables sustainable cardiac output.