Laser polishing in medical engineering

Cardiac surgery has made significant progress during the last 50 years. nowadays, almost every congenital or contracted dysfunction of the heart can be treated clinically or at least the etiopathology can be alleviated. During these years, implantable Left Ventricular Assist Devices (LVADs) have proven to be an effective and reliable medical product. In particular, the survival rate of patients with cardiac insufficiency has risen due to these devices. This type of heart-assist device is implanted either to bridge the time until cardiac transplantation or recovery has occurred, or for permanent implantation in the patient's body. Berlin Heart GmbH produces the clinically tested axial pump system INCOR® (Figure 1, above). The INCOR heart-as-sisting pump is a powerful implantable LVAD which has been used in more than 500 clinical applications. The main function of the axial pump is to unload the patient's heart by transporting blood from the left ventricle to the aorta. In order to assure high reliability of the pump's operation, the components used for blood transport have to be highly bio- and hemocompatible.