Artificial organs 2010: a year in review

In this Editor's Review, articles published in 2010 are organized by category and briefly summarized. As the official journal of The International Federation for Artificial Organs, The International Faculty for Artificial Organs, and the International Society for Rotary Blood Pumps, Artificial Organs continues in the original mission of its founders "to foster communications in the field of artificial organs on an international level."Artificial Organs continues to publish developments and clinical applications of artificial organ technologies in this broad and expanding field of organ Replacement, Recovery, and Regeneration from all over the world. We take this time also to express our gratitude to our authors for offering their work to this journal. We offer our very special thanks to our reviewers who give so generously of time and expertise to review, critique, and especially provide such meaningful suggestions to the author's work whether eventually accepted or rejected and especially to those whose native tongue is not English. Without these excellent and dedicated reviewers the quality expected from such a journal could not be possible. We also express our special thanks to our Publisher, Wiley-Blackwell, for their expert attention and support in the production and marketing of Artificial Organs. In this Editor's Review, that historically has been widely received by our readership, we aim to provide a brief reflection of the currently available worldwide knowledge that is intended to advance and better human life while providing insight for continued application of technologies and methods of organ Replacement, Recovery, and Regeneration. We look forward to recording further advances in the coming years.

Clinical effectiveness of centrifugal pump to produce pulsatile flow during cardiopulmonary bypass in patients undergoing cardiac surgery

Although the centrifugal pump has been widely used as a nonpulsatile pump for cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB), little is known about its performance as a pulsatile pump for CPB, especially on its efficacy in producing hemodynamic energy and its clinical effectiveness. We performed a study to evaluate whether the Rotaflow centrifugal pump produces effective pulsatile flow during CPB and whether the pulsatile flow in this setting is clinically effective in adult patients undergoing cardiac surgery. Thirty-two patients undergoing CPB for elective coronary artery bypass grafting were randomly allocated to a pulsatile perfusion group (n = 16) or a nonpulsatile perfusion group (n = 16). All patients were perfused with the Rotaflow centrifugal pump. In the pulsatile group, the centrifugal pump was adjusted to the pulsatile mode (60 cycles/min) during aortic cross-clamping, whereas in the nonpulsatile group, the pump was kept in its nonpulsatile mode during the same period of time. Compared with the nonpulsatile group, the pulsatile group had a higher pulse pressure (P < 0.01) and a fraction higher energy equivalent pressure (EEP, P = 0.058). The net gain of pulsatile flow, represented by the surplus hemodynamic energy (SHE), was found much higher in the CPB circuit than in patients (P < 0.01). Clinically, there was no difference between the pulsatile and nonpulsatile groups with regard to postoperative acute kidney injury, endothelial activation, or inflammatory response. Postoperative organ function and the duration of hospital stay were similar in the two patient groups. In conclusion, pulsatile CPB with the Rotaflow centrifugal pump is associated with a small gain of EEP and SHE, which does not seem to be clinically effective in adult cardiac surgical patients.