Development of an aortic prosthesis providing function of windkessel

Prof. Matthias Karck, Dr. Tobias Schilling, MHH, Germany

The function of windkessel of physiologic aorta transforms the pulsatile blood flow into an more continous flow while reducing high blood pressure peaks. This is limited in conventional synthetic dacron prostheses due to the lack of elasticity of these materials. Thereupon blood pressure of at least 180 mmHg, which corresponds to the initial cardiac output pressure, is noted within the prostheses and the following circulation. This hypertension harms multiple organs and tissue. Therefore the aim of this project is the development of a novel aortic prosthesis that provides elastic buffer.

Basis of this novel prosthesis will be a conventional aortic dacron prosthesis. The windkessel will be an integrated circular double chamber. The outer wall will be of rigid titan or ceramics material, anastomosed to the dacron tube. An inner chamber, bounced by a synthetic membrane such as silicon-like derivatives will form the lumen of this prosthesis. A compressible medium will fill the space between the two chambers and support the elastic reset force of the inner membrane.

The inner synthetic membrane will provide the function of windkessel: The pulsatile bloodflow temporarily dilates the membrane and hereby shortly increases the capacity of the lumen. Herein the increased volume of the pulse wave can be stored, resulting in an almost continuous blood flow with lower maximum pressure peaks.

An aortic prosthesis with an integrated windkessel will severely reduce complications traced back to insufficient elastic properties of the previous conventional dacron prostheses.