Does the use of centrifugal blood pumps at low flow rates cause hemolysis in in-vitro and in-silico models?
Centrifugal blood pumps cause significant hemolysis at low flow rates, highlighting the need for optimized pumps for pediatric ECMO or ECCO2R.
This study highlights the underappreciated hemolysis in centrifugal pumps within the low-flow range, i.e. during pediatric ECMO or ECCO2R treatment. The in-vitro results of hemolysis and the in-silico computational fluid dynamic simulations of flow paths within the pumps raise awareness about blood damage that occurs when using centrifugal pumps at low-flow operating points. These findings underline the urgent need for a specific pump optimized for low-flow treatment. Due to the inherent problems of available centrifugal pumps in the low-flow range, clinicians should use the current centrifugal pumps with caution, alternatively other pumping principles such as positive displacement pumps may be discussed in the future.
Schöps et al. (Tue,) studied this question.